Project Report Series最新文献

{"title":"Consumer Interest in a Natural Designation in Food Choice","authors":"E. Goddard, V. Muringai, Amber Robinson","doi":"10.22004/AG.ECON.264421","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22004/AG.ECON.264421","url":null,"abstract":"In this study, the objective is to identify consumers’ willingness to consume different foods and the factors that could drive their food preferences. One hundred non-academic staff and students at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada participated in the study. Data were collected using focus group discussions, a survey questionnaire and a contingent valuation exercise. In the focus groups, participants discussed their preferences for traits in livestock and their products, their interest in natural foods and their perceptions regarding naturalness of food in relation to the different types of farming and technologies. In the survey questionnaire, participants were asked about their food consumption habits, perceptions, attitudes and preferences for different foods and technologies, generalized trust in people and trust in groups or institutions responsible for food in Canada among other issues. In the contingent valuation exercise, participants chose the price they were willing to pay for pork with different information about carnosine and omega-3 fatty acids. We find that there is heterogeneity in terms of consumers’ perceptions, attitudes and behaviour regarding natural foods. In summary, the cost of food, concerns about human and environmental impacts and trustworthiness of information on labels are some of the factors that influence participants’ decisions to buy pork labeled as coming from disease resilient or feed efficient pigs or pigs that are higher in a human or animal health component. Although some people accept genetic modification, other participants were concerned about its use in improving disease resilience, feed efficiency and human or animal health component in pigs. Although there are some variations in the results, generalized trust in people, food technology neophobia and concerns about product leanness, country of origin of the product, nutrition content, use of hormones and antibiotics in livestock production and environmental foot print of livestock production are associated with attitudes, perceptions and behaviour regarding natural foods. Participants are willing to pay more for pork chops with more information about carnosine and omega-3 fatty acids as compared to pork chops with less information. In comparison to carnosine, participants are willing to pay more for pork chops with information about omega-3 fatty acids. Generalized trust in people, trust in advocacy groups, natural product interest, frequency of purchasing products with a health claim and knowledge of sodium content in pork that have a health claim are associated with willingness to pay for enhanced carnosine and omega-3 fatty acids in pork.","PeriodicalId":183610,"journal":{"name":"Project Report Series","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117030603","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Analysis of Value-Added Meat Product Choice Behaviour by Canadian Households","authors":"Xu Zhang, E. Goddard","doi":"10.7939/R3NS0M45B","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7939/R3NS0M45B","url":null,"abstract":"The competitive landscape in retailing has changed over the past decade. Moreover, the degree of product differentiation has been increasing: households are able to choose between an increasing number of store brands and national brands of similar products. The value added meat market is no different than any other sector of the grocery market – both national brands and private label brands are being developed to appeal to the consumer‘s desire for convenience, health, production and environmental attributes. Understanding the factors that are influencing consumers‘ value added meat product preferences is important for meat manufacturers who wish to add value to their firm‘s performance and increase market share. This knowledge is required in order to predict changes in demand and develop new products and marketing strategies that respond to changing consumer needs. The objective of the paper is to provide information on value added meat consumption patterns in Canada at the household level using household purchase information from a representative sample of the Canadian population collected through Nielsen Homescan™. Specifically the focus is on how meat consumers make their decision to purchase value-added meat products – the impact of value added meat types, store choices and brands preference on meat demand. The study undertakes an empirical investigation of Canadian household value added meat demand for the period 2002 to 2007. A comparison of consumers‘ preferences is performed with respect to store-switching, brand loyalty and meat expenditure. Multivariate regression analysis is employed to explain consumer preferences for the examined stores, products and brands. We find that meat price, advertising, the number of stores visited, household socio-demographic characteristics and regional segments are strongly related to meat expenditure levels. Value added meat product preferences vary widely across meat types - for example, consumer behaviour towards pork is not a good predictor of behaviour towards poultry, in terms of national brand/store brand choice. The data developed in this analysis can highlight6 marketing opportunities that exist for meat producers and processors to increase the value of total sales for their particular products. The results of this study highlight the impact of number of stores regularly shopped at on purchases of national brand versus private label meat products, the impact of expenditure on meat by product form on national brand versus private label and the impact of demographic and regional variables on all meat purchases, by animal species.","PeriodicalId":183610,"journal":{"name":"Project Report Series","volume":"83 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2010-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127302643","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Results from the Farm Behaviour Component of the Integrated Economic-Hydrologic Model for the Watershed Evaluation of Beneficial Management Practices Program","authors":"P. Boxall, M. Weber, Orsolya Perger, Marius Cutlac, Antony Samarawickrema","doi":"10.22004/AG.ECON.116268","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22004/AG.ECON.116268","url":null,"abstract":"This report summarizes preliminary results from the Farm Behavior component of the South Tobacco Creek Integrated Modeling Project (STC Project) which is being undertaken as part of the Watershed Evaluation of BMPs (WEBs) Program. WEBS is a partnership between Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) established to evaluate the economic and environmental performance of BMPs for water quality at the watershed scale. Water draining from South Tobacco Creek eventually enters to Lake Winnipeg which is degraded from the cumulative effects of nutrient loading, particularly phosphorous. Many jurisdictions across the world, including Canada, use payments programs to encourage land owners to change land management practices in order to reduce non-point source pollution. BMP incentive programs in Canada, such as Greencover, rely on fixed payment schemes which pay producers a set amount for BMPs, regardless of costs or benefits. In order to improve the performance of payment programs many jurisdictions have instituted auction type mechanisms. The purpose of the Farm Behavior component of the STC project is to examine the performance of various types of payment programs for BMPs relative to reducing phosphorous loads from STC. Theoretical and empirical evidence from conservation auctions suggest that the performance of auctions depends on several factors which affect the bidding behavior of producers during the auction, and therefore the cost-effectiveness of auctions over other types of payment programs. In particular, some producers actually benefit from BMPs, however under certain auction rules these producers would be paid the same amount as high cost producers; alternatively, producers with low costs of adopting BMPs may not always provide the greatest benefits in terms of pollution abatement depending on their location in the watershed, and physical features of their land. We assessed the relative performance of different payment programs by developing producer response functions for adoption of Beneficial Management Practices (BMPs). Producer adoption responses under different incentive schemes were tested using experiments with student subjects and limited trials with producers. We examined four BMPs: construction of holding ponds, riparian management, forage conversion, and conservation till. The results of the adoption response experiments conducted under WEBS were used to draw preliminary observations on BMP policy design and form the basis for recommendations for further research. The farm behavior project focuses on addressing the following two questions: 1. Does BMP adoption at a given farm make the individual farm household better or worse off from an economic perspective? 2. How much will it cost the government to get farms to adopt BMPs under different payment programs? Since producer heterogeneity is key to understanding the performance of conservation auctions, we examined the costs and benefits of BMPs at t","PeriodicalId":183610,"journal":{"name":"Project Report Series","volume":"62 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126261898","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Delphi Study of Growth and Yield in Canada's Forests: Report of a Scientific Survey","authors":"W. Phillips, D. Boulter, D. Booth, K. Clark","doi":"10.7939/R3154DS0P","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7939/R3154DS0P","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":183610,"journal":{"name":"Project Report Series","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122517564","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Consumer Awareness of and Preferences for Bio-active Lipid Enhanced Beef","authors":"S. Cash, J. Kingston-Riechers, Yanning Peng, Diane McCann-Hiltz, Yulian Ding, Wendy Beaunom","doi":"10.7939/R3MC8RK5D","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7939/R3MC8RK5D","url":null,"abstract":"This study investigates consumer attitudes toward functional foods in the context of CLA-enhanced beef products. The objectives of this study were to identify the following issues: 1) consumer awareness and attitudes towards nutrition, functional foods, and other emerging factors; 2) consumers´ major health concerns; 3) consumers´ beef consumption patterns; 4) the importance of health information and food labeling in affecting consumer purchasing decisions; 5) consumer attitudes, acceptance, and willingness to pay for CLA-enriched beef products; 6) and consumers´ demographic information. “Choice experiment” survey design methodology was used to collect the data. Choice experiments have become an important and recognized tool in marketing and non-market valuation research, and have several advantages over other research designs. The main advantage of choice experimentation is that it allows the analyst to separately identify the value of an individual attribute of a good. In this study, we utilized several small touch-screen computers that allowed us to bring our computer-based choice experiment study to eight supermarkets in four cities across Canada. 800 self-identified beef consumers participated in the survey. Key results include the following: i) Consumers think that food choices are important for preventing chronic disease and they are least concerned about the use of functional foods for disease prevention or health promotion; ii) The awareness of CLA is relatively low compared to Omega-3 and other nutrients and fats in foods; iii) In relation to meat with regular CLA content, respondents would pay $2.51/kg more and $2.74/kg more for meat with a CLA enhanced label and a CLA enriched label, respectively; iv) In comparison to all other respondents, respondents in Quebec appear to be willing to pay a higher a premium for meat with CLA enhanced or enriched labels; v) The consumer target segment for CLA enriched beef products can be characterized as health conscious consumers who are already familiar with CLA.","PeriodicalId":183610,"journal":{"name":"Project Report Series","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129024346","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Macroeconomic Impacts on Canadian Agricultural Prices","authors":"W. Adamowicz, T. Veeman, M. Veeman, G. Armstrong, K. Hamal, Gabriel S. Lee, W. Tymchuk","doi":"10.7939/R3348GP4W","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7939/R3348GP4W","url":null,"abstract":"Interest in modeling the relationship between the macroeconomy and the agricultural economy has risen steadily since Schuh's 1974 article which illustrated the potential effects of macroeconomic policy shocks on the agricultural sector. A variety of authors has examined the effects of exchange rates, interest rate, money supply and general price level shocks on agricultural variables (prices, exports, etc.). A variety of techniques has also been used to examine these relationships. Both structural econometric models and time series approaches have been employed. In this study a new economietric technique, Vector Autoregressive (VAR) modeling, is used to investigate the impact of macroeconomic factors on the Canadian agricultural sector. Vector Autoregressive models (VARs) are dynamic simultaneous equation models. VAR models allow the data to provide a representation of the changes in the system without the restrictions on coefficients that are usually used in the estimation of simultaneous equation econometric models. VAR models focus on the dynamic paths of the variables in the system. They provide a concise summary of the dynamic interrelationships in an economic system. In this study, several forms of VAR models are used to examine the dynamic interaction of agricultural prices, exports and macroeconomic variables. There are a number of significant conclusions from the empirical analysis performed in this study. First, there appear to be significant macroeconomic impacts on the Canadian agricultural sector. Other studies of macroeconomic-sectoral linkages have found limited impact of macroeconomic factors. This study, however, using a relatively new methodology, has discovered a stronger integration. The strongest linkage appears to be between interest and exchange rates and agricultural output prices. There is little direct impact from domestic inflation. Such a result is not surprising given the international nature of Canadian agriculture. Input prices do not appear to be as significantly affected by macroeconomic shocks as are output prices. Such a result may be interpreted as providing support to the hypothesis that input and output prices in agriculture exhibit the \"fixed-price flex-price\" phenomenon. The methods used in this study are relatively new and they provide a flexible approach to modeling economic time series. It is apparent that the \"identification conditions\" assumed by the researcher significantly affect the empirical results. In this study we have modified existing techniques to provide more plausible identification restrictions on the model. The results indicate that the agricultural sector, in particular through agricultural output prices, is sensitive to exchange rate and interest rate variation. The techniques used here may be applied in future research to investigate the impact of macroeconomic variables on specific commodities and on regions of the country.","PeriodicalId":183610,"journal":{"name":"Project Report Series","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126990857","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Profitability and Risk of Retained Ownership of Beef Calves","authors":"F. Novak, J. Eales, E. Munro","doi":"10.7939/R3901ZH48","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7939/R3901ZH48","url":null,"abstract":"This study investigates the risk and return of retained ownership of steer calves past weaning, in Alberta. The study is approached using an historical simulation. The base simulation model is based on a producer retaining 100 beef steers every fall for the years 1979 to 1991. There are three weaning weights examined being four hundred and fifty, five hundry and fifty and six hundred and fifty pounds. In additition to the base model a further simulation is developed to examine selective hedging strategies. Participation in the National Tripartite Stabilization Program has been a benefit to producers who retain ownership, both in terms of increased return and decreased risk. Selective hedging strategies, based on a target return, can increase returns and decrease the level of risk. A routine hedge was not found to be a successful risk management tool over long production horizons.","PeriodicalId":183610,"journal":{"name":"Project Report Series","volume":"67 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132241778","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Socio-Economic Evaluation of Woodland Caribou in Northwestern Saskatchewan","authors":"M. Tanguay, W. Adamowicz, P. Boxall, W. Phillips, W. A. White","doi":"10.7939/R3FZ29","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7939/R3FZ29","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":183610,"journal":{"name":"Project Report Series","volume":"52 ","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131550750","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Canadian Demand for Meats","authors":"J. Eales, M. Veeman, J. Fulton","doi":"10.7939/R3PN8XN3S","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7939/R3PN8XN3S","url":null,"abstract":"The demand for meat in Canada is examined in a manner similar to that employed in previous work. The current effort differs from previous studies in two important ways. First, beef demand is disaggregated into ground beef and table-cut beef. This is an attempt to allow a more detailed understanding of beef demand and beef products' relation to other meats. Second, Canadian livestock production costs and trade are incorporated in the calculation of demand estimates. This is motivated by previous findings of significant shifts in Canadian consumers' meat preferences sometime in the 1970s. Shocks to the supply side during the I. decade of the 1970s may have caused findings of shifts in demand. If this is so, then incorporating supply factors when calculating demand estimates should cause structural change to disappear. Results show that, as they typically estimated, ground and table-cut beef are very different products in consumption. Ground beef is more expenditure elastic and less ownprice elastic than table-cut beef. Both products compete about equally with pork, but ground beef is more substitutable for chicken. Demands also appear to have undergone a significant shift in 1978. However, incorporating the supply side and trade in estimation of Canadian meat demands produces significantly better estimates and causes the apparent differences between ground and table-cut beef and all structural shifts to disappear. The implications for producers and processors of red meats are that it is in improved production and marketing efficiencies that the chicken producers and processors are winning the battle for market share of the Canadian consumers' declining food budget.","PeriodicalId":183610,"journal":{"name":"Project Report Series","volume":"84 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124342422","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Economic Evaluation of Manure Management and Farm Gate Applications : A Literature Review of Environmental and Economic Aspects of Manure Management in Alberta's Livestock Sectors","authors":"J. Unterschultz, S. Jeffrey","doi":"10.7939/R3FB4WK7M","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7939/R3FB4WK7M","url":null,"abstract":"Livestock operations in Alberta have a significant impact on the economy. Manure is a by-product of livestock production. The review of the science on manure examined the environmental impacts of manure. These impacts include water pollution, air pollution, climatic change, and soil degradation. There are several technologies that may be used to manage manure on-farm and off-farm. These include nutrient recycling through soil application and composting. Composting reduces the volume of manure, but increases the nitrogen losses from the manure This review, using a very simplistic approach, estimated that more than 6.3 million tonnes of manure were generated in Alberta in 1996. Other studies have estimated significantly higher annual manure production. On a province-wide basis, there is adequate cropland area to make use of all the nutrients available in the manure produced. However, manure production tends to be concentrated on smaller land areas. Benefits of manure are constrained by both hauling costs and the costs of managing the manure itself. The on-farm economic costs or benefits are not well documented. Four general approaches have been used to analyze the on-farm economics of manure management. - Opportunity Cost: Value the nutrient content of manure using commercial fertilizer values and consider the manure or manure product as a commercial fertilizer substitute or supplement. - Crop Benefit: Value the direct crop benefit through a comparison of production in soil with manure applied versus a control with no manure applied. - Cost of Business: View the manure exclusively as a by-product of livestock production and evaluate methods for minimizing the cost of disposal. - Business Enterprise: View manure production as a value-added business and evaluate as a separate business enterprise using an appropriate approach. Any detailed economic analysis should incorporate the dynamic nature of manure production, and the management of manure through recycling through soil. Only one study was identified that was based on Alberta conditions and utilized a systems approach. At best, only one of the published studies explicitly incorporated the dynamic interactions of the livestock operation with a cropping enterprise, to analyze the on-farm economics of manure. This may be, in part, related to the complexities of modeling the key components in the system, while including the dynamic time-related interactions between soil, manure, and the environment. Those studies that attempted a systems approach or, at the very least, a more complete investment analysis, generally showed manure to be a net cost to the farm business. Little farm gate economic research applicable to Alberta on cost and benefits of manure systems for commercial farms for feedlots, dairy, pork or poultry was found. Future research could focus on a) economic case studies of selected farms to value manure management systems and b) working towards a systems analysis of manure management fo","PeriodicalId":183610,"journal":{"name":"Project Report Series","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124030757","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}