Despite the growing use of country of origin (CoO) information and labels on food, the extent to which consumers really value this information is unclear. In an effort to understand this issue we present results of a hypothetical discrete choice experiment examining consumer willingness-topay for CoO information about meat and meat products. Our results reveal that CoO information is positively valued for all the food products we consider. However, it is relatively less important compared to other food attributes for a large number of products such as bacon, pizza and ready meals. Our results suggest that consumers do not value very highly CoO information for many of the food products examined. Therefore, if the associated costs of mandatory CoO implementation are sufficiently high this raises questions about the inclusion of this information on food labels.

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The concept of social capital in economic theory. ЕКОНОМИКА, 61(1): 73-84. J J European Commission (2017). Modernising and Simplifying the CAP: Background Document -Socio-economic challenges facing EU agriculture and rural areas. DG-Agriculture and Rural Development. (EC: Brussels).

Consumer preferences for food produced using currently prohibited production methods matter, especially in relation to potential trade deals. We conduct four discrete choice experiments examining UK consumer attitudes for food produced using several agricultural production methods currently prohibited in the UK, including chlorine washed chicken. Our results reveal negative preferences for these forms of agricultural production methods whereas EU food safety standards are highly valued. Willingness-to-pay estimates indicate that the positive values for food safety are frequently greater than the negative values placed on prohibited food production methods. Similarly, UK country of origin was highly valued but organic production was less valued. We discuss the implications of these results and, more generally, the use of stated preference estimates in economic modelling underpinning trade negotiations.

Summary The Evaluation of Rural Development Policy in the EU Evaluation is firmly established as part of rural development policymaking in the EU. A requirement to evaluate is set out in the Rural Development Regulation, the legal basis for spending EU funds on agreed aspects of rural development, which also stipulates the process to be used. Member States are responsible for ensuring that independent ex ante, mid‐term and ex post evaluations are carried out for each seven‐year Rural Development Programme (RDP), but with inputs from the Commission, notably on common evaluation questions to be used in all countries. Such a heavily structured system has both advantages and disadvantages. Consistency of approach enables synthesis of evaluation results at the EU level and provides a degree of quality control. However, it constrains the ability of evaluators to pursue issues which may be of importance locally or to other stakeholders. Technical details, especially the timing of evaluation stages, also diminish the ability to learn from past programmes. Data availability remains an important issue. Nevertheless, our experience is that it is both possible and important to learn from evaluating RDPs, not only to measure their apparent achievements, but also to enhance the quality of the policy process, at all levels.

Summary The benefit from information contained in FADN results and those of national farm accounts surveys comes from the improvements that are made possible in decisions by public policymakers and by farmers. Direct valuation of these benefits is difficult and attention has to focus on publication of results and uses by EU central institutions, national governments and the private sector, especially farmers. FADN is used by the European Commission for the analysis and evaluation of economic policy relating to the agricultural sector comprising ‘commercial farms’ and results are published as statistics for both the EU and Member States. Almost all national governments use their results for similar public purposes but most also make them available for the provision of advice to farmers and benchmarking of their own performance. Member States differ in their views on whether the national survey would continue in the absence of the legal obligation to supply data to FADN. The Netherlands provides an example of data collection that is broader than is required for FADN and which enables a wide range of policies to be serviced, with a judgement by its government that it therefore represents good value for money.