Consumer responses to food products produced near the Fukushima nuclear plant

Aruga, Kentaka (2015): Consumer responses to food products produced near the Fukushima nuclear plant.

Abstract

The study examines the consumer survey data collected for the seven agricultural products (rice, apple, cucumber, beef, pork, egg, and shiitake mushrooms) of regions near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (FDNP) to find out what factors and attributes of consumers affect their purchasing behavior by using the contingent valuation method. In most of the agricultural products, we found that consumers who put high priority on food safety issue, think the risk of radiation contamination became high after the Fukushima nuclear incident, live distanced from the FDNP, and live with children under the age of 15 require a higher discount rate to accept agricultural products of regions near the FDNP. On the other hand, our study indicated that consumers who trust the current safety standard for radioactive material concentrations in food, knowledgeable about radiation and radioactive materials, have high environmental consciousness, and aged are more likely to accept buying products of regions near the FDNP.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: radioactive contamination, willingness to accept, CVM survey
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D1 - Household Behavior and Family Economics > D12 - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q1 - Agriculture > Q13 - Agricultural Markets and Marketing ; Cooperatives ; Agribusiness

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