Effects of Environmental and Health Information on Willingness to Pay for Local and Organic Foods in Taiwan

Abstract

Using a lab-in-the-field experiment, we investigate how providing information about food miles and pesticide residue influences willingness to pay (WTP) for potatoes among 407 shoppers in Taiwan, split between a supermarket and a farmers market. Initially, local organic potatoes have the highest average WTP at NTD73, followed by imported organic at NTD67, local non-organic at NTD48, and imported non-organic at NTD42. When we introduce information about food miles, the WTP for imported organic potatoes decreases by NTD10.2, without significantly impacting other varieties. A different information treatment featuring pesticide residue information boosts the WTP for local organic potatoes by NTD8.3 but has no significant effect on the other categories. Providing both types of information diminishes the local premium for non-organic potatoes while enhancing it for local organic varieties. The influence of the information varies by shopping venue: farmers market shoppers give more weight to food miles information, whereas supermarket patrons are more responsive to pesticide residue information.