Do Consumers Support Beginning and Female Farmers?

Abstract

Beginning and female farmers are crucial for the succession of the next generation of farming. Despite policy interventions to provide access to credit, land, and capital, little is known about whether the end-market consumers support the business ventures of beginning farmers and their products. Using an incentivized online experiment, this study assesses consumers' willingness to support beginning and female farmers in direct monetary donations, real effort volunteerism support, and willingness-to-pay for products. The results show that consumers, in general, do not differentiate their support for beginning farmers relative to generic farmers except in the case of voluntary effort exertion.