Willingness to Pay for Eco-Labeled Food in Forests: Integrated View from South Korea

Abstract

Due to global interest in the improvement of national income and quality of life, eco-labeled food (ELF) for sustainable consumption and personal healthcare has been increasing. This study aims to contribute to two research streams by examining the quality of ELF in forests (ELFF). First, this study intends to estimate the willingness to pay (WTP) of ELFF producers for the certification verified by the government-supported institution and investigate the difference in certification costs between the actual certificating authority and ELFF producers. Second, this study aims to figure out the perception mechanism of how consumers who would like to purchase ELFFs recognize the effect of enhanced certification. These efforts may contribute to the research on how to raise interest in the production of ELF-related products and sustainable consumption. To achieve the purpose of this study, we adopted contingent valuation methods (CVM) to measure WTPs using interview-based surveys with 40 ELF producers and ordinary least squares (OLS) regression to examine the effect of certification with 112 consumers who experienced ELF consumption. Results of this study provide theoretical and practical implications by looking at the relationship between ELF certification and sustainable consumption from a stakeholder's perspective. This study intends to expand the research field of ELF from agriculture to forestry products. It provides a basis for providing practical implications for policymakers who propose sustainable consumption.

Estimation of Citizens’ Willingness to Pay for the Implementation of Payment for Local Forest Ecosystem Services: The Case of Taxes and Donations

“…Accordingly, focusing on a single specific service [7] or bundles of multiple services [24] are both appropriate. Many previous studies have focused on one specific ES, such as the following: provisioning clean non-timber forest products [25], the conservation of biodiversity [26], carbon absorption [27], regulating local climates [28], and fostering water resources [29]. Investigating the effect of one specific ES on human life is essential for understanding the relationship between the resource and its use from a human's perspective.…”

Estimating the Willingness to Pay for Eco-Labeled Products of Formosan Pangolin (Manis pentadactyla pentadactyla) Conservation

“…Restrictions imposed for conservation may affect farming practices. However, with the provision of production and marketing history and the introduction of green labeling, ecological labeling, conservation labeling, friendly labeling, and organic labeling, consumers' WTP can usually be increased, and product awareness could also be raised [17,33,34]. A study on French consumers' WTP for apples with different labels showed that labeled apples increased different consumer groups' WTP [15].…”

“…Under the probit model: (4) the annual WTP per capita for cooperation with farmers for pangolin conservation programs is NTD 1729.00−1698.97 (about 61.70 USD); and (5) the annual WTP per capita for continuous pangolin studies is NTD 1479.09−1439.37 (about 52.49 USD). More and more studies have found a positive WTP for labelled food products [14,33,34]. Therefore, eco-labelling might play a role in gaining added value for food items and influencing the relative importance of their price.…”