School of Public Affairs and China Academy of Rural Development (CARD), Zhejiang University, 866 Yuhangtang Road, Hangzhou 310058, China.
Department of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University, 403 West State Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Jul 22;19(15):8946. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19158946.
Remediation of polluted soil on arable land is mostly funded by governments, with the understanding that the public's willingness to pay for food produced on remediated soil can help establish a soil remediation model with more stakeholders. In contrast to previous studies that have focused on soil-remediation technologies' diffusion, this study employs choice experiments to evaluate market preferences for crops grown from lands of varying quality that are reflected in consumers' willingness to pay (WTP). The results show that consumers are willing to pay a small premium for rice labeled with remediated-soil claims, but the WTP for remediated-soil claim is less than that of an uncontaminated-soil claim. Consumers' WTP for remediated-soil claim increases by 29.03% when combining with a well-known brand, and it increases by 71.17% when information is provided about the efficacy of cadmium and heavy-metal-pollution remediation; however, combining with the region-of-origin label does not increase WTP. We also find that, in early stages of promotion, online stores may reach target consumers more easily. Based on these results, we propose four implications for policymakers.
耕地污染土壤修复主要由政府出资，因为公众愿意为修复土壤上生产的食物买单，这有助于建立一个有更多利益相关者参与的土壤修复模式。与以往关注土壤修复技术扩散的研究不同，本研究采用选择实验来评估消费者对不同质量土地上种植的作物的市场偏好，这些偏好反映在消费者的支付意愿（WTP）中。结果表明，消费者愿意为贴有修复土壤标签的大米支付少量溢价，但对修复土壤标签的 WTP 低于对无污染土壤标签的 WTP。当与知名品牌结合时，消费者对修复土壤标签的 WTP 增加了 29.03%，当提供关于镉和重金属污染修复效果的信息时，WTP 增加了 71.17%；然而，与产地标签结合并不会增加 WTP。我们还发现，在推广的早期阶段，在线商店可能更容易接触到目标消费者。基于这些结果，我们为政策制定者提出了四条建议。
