Urban households’ willingness to pay for milk safety in Samsun and Trabzon provinces of Turkey

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine urban households’ willingness to pay (WTP) for milk safety and to analyze the factors affecting WTP premiums using data obtained from surveys conducted in Samsun and Trabzon provinces, Turkey. Design/methodology/approach Contingent valuation and censoring methods including the error-dependent bivariate Heckman SS model were used for estimating WTP for milk safety and its effective factors, respectively. Findings The study indicates that 68 percent of the households were willing to pay 0.35 per liter for improving the safety of milk. The model results show that satisfaction with food safety standards, being married and full-time employment have statistically significant positive effects on the WTP for ISO-certified milk. However, purchasing milk from farmers or open-air markets, age, having a child six-year old or younger, and high school or higher education have statistically significant negative effects on the WTP for ISO-certified milk. Research limitations/implications The main limitation of the current study is that only urban consumers’ WTP and effective factors for milk safety were examined in two provinces of Turkey. Practical implications More rigorous implementations of food safety standards, traceability systems and effective educational campaigns could promote households’ food safety awareness and increase their demand for milk safety. Social implications Knowing what factors are involved in consumer WTP is extremely important for decision makers to create new social policies in the region or country. Originality/value A similar study has not been conducted in Turkey. The novelty of this study is the specification and robust estimation of three different but competing models to reveal the wide range of WTP amounts for safe milk.

Theoretical and Practical Issues of Research on the Consumption Needs for Safe Foods in Vietnam Using the Willingness to Pay Model

“…The CV method generally uses non-market valuation to access WTP such as questionnaires for consumers. This method has been widely used in empirical research on consumer behavior or consumption need to estimate WTP, but since there is no market for safe foods, the direct observations for monetary amounts that people pay for safe foods cannot be obtained (Bozoglu et al, 2019). Instead of a survey for consumption habits, this method allows researchers to directly ask consumers through survey questions about their buying options: whether they would buy a product or not, and at what price and quantity (Carson & et al, 2001).…”

“…However, this research still has a limitation in answering "how much consumers can consume for the product they choose." Heckman (1976) introduced a two-stage regression estimation model, which was first designed for cases where consumption can be zero (Bozoglu et al, 2019), so the process of consumer needs research will be divided into two steps: (i) Step 1: identify whether consumers are willing to buy the product; and (ii) Step 2: if they are willing to buy, how much are they buying? Asatryan (2004) applied this model to study pork consumer needs by assessing the influences of factors on safe food purchase decisions (crop, diet as suggested by doctors, gender, age, educational level, area of residence, number of family members, and families without members under 18) and factors influencing the amount of food purchased (crop, doctor's diet recommendations, gender, age, region of residence, and number of family members).…”

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“…Structurally will also make campus management more environmentally friendly [22][23] and these conditions will apply in other education areas. Meanwhile, there are other factors that have a relationship and influence, positive and negative on environmental awareness such as knowladge, environmental education, socio-demographic factors [24], gender [25], the educational status of the parents of the students, their living area in which they lived most of the time, their status of having hobbies [26], and culture (the communities which still have strong customary law will tend to preserve the environment and limit usages that cause damage to the environment) [27].…”