Little is known about consumer response to food safety recalls in low- and middle- income countries. Using an event-study framework, this paper examines the immediate and long-term changes in noodle purchases after the nationwide removal of Maggi instant noodles from the market in India in 2015. We show that this recall had a negative impact on the purchases of Maggi noodles among urban households for at least two years. This provides evidence of the huge costs of recalls on food producers that can be leveraged by policymakers to promote food safety. We also find strong evidence for a positive spillover effect to non-Maggi noodles that is more persistent among households with more regular purchasing habits of Maggi noodles. This indicates that consumers with more persistent habits of buying a recalled product are less likely to stigmatize alike food products under different brands. Our results are robust to alternative assumptions of pre-trends in purchases and placebo tests.

Abstract Whereas between-retailer price discrepancies are well documented, less is known about price differentiations within a single chain. This article investigates the prevalence and the magnitude of online within-retailer price dispersion over time. Amazon is the US largest online food retailer (and the second largest retailer in the entire US grocery market), and we use the rich daily price data on food and beverages sold by Amazon Fresh in New York City and Los Angeles to shed light on the prevalence, magnitude, and determinants of the within-retailer price dispersion over time. We show that differences in economic indicators, competitive pressure, and COVID-19 exposure across locations contribute to price dispersion. Once those factors are controlled for, we observe a negative linear time trend in the share and magnitude of non-identical prices confirming an increasing market integration as e-commerce matures.

Abstract This paper investigates the potential effects of trade restrictions and alternative tariff policies, including a tariff wedge between feed and final products on the Ghanaian poultry producers. We apply a hybrid approach that uses qualitative results of a Delphi study to define scenarios for a modified global general equilibrium model. The projected production changes are then used as inputs into a typical farm analysis that disentangles the effects for broiler farm types in Ghana. The effect of expanding a tariff wedge between final and feed products by 5 per cent, either through increasing the tariff rates of the final product or through abolishing the tariffs on feed products, is small in our case. However, increasing the tariff rate of the final product to the maximum level of bound tariff (i.e. 99 per cent) or a complete ban has a larger effect on domestic production. It increases the production by 104 per cent and up to 254 per cent, respectively. The typical farm analysis reveals that large-scale farms are better positioned to increase production than small and medium farm types.

Abstract Compared with the EU, regulations on antibiotic use in livestock are less stringent in the USA. If consumers prefer non-antibiotic or minimal antibiotic-use meat, labeling different levels of antibiotic use in the USA could have the potential to mitigate the development of antibiotic-resistant livestock. This study used a survey of 660 US consumers to estimate willingness to pay (WTP) for pork chops from pigs raised with different levels of antibiotic use. Results show that WTP for antibiotic-free pork chops is higher compared with WTP for pork chops produced with minimal use of antibiotics for disease treatment and conventional use of antibiotics for growth promotion. These findings suggest that it could be beneficial to differentiate usage levels of antibiotics when labeling pork products rather than stating ‘use’ or ‘no use’.

Abstract Studies show that cereal diversity positively affects mean yields, suggesting increased crop diversity as a means of increasing production (Di Falco and Chavas 2009, Baumgärtner and Quaas 2010). In practice though, agricultural development has relied on nondiverse systems. Using the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey panel, we revisit this paradox and disentangle the effects of agroecological zones and composition of crop diversity. We find a positive effect of greater cereal diversity on cereal production, but mostly in specific agroecological zones and for households who diversify away from a particular low-productivity crop: teff. These results indicate that the scope of cereal diversity to drive increases in output may be limited. Similar to recent studies of biodiversity—ecosystem function relationships (e.g. Jochum et al. 2020), the results suggest that the composition of diverse systems can be more important than the measured diversity itself. In the case of cereal crops in Ethiopia, differences in the yields of particular cereals in the crop mix explain the diversity effect, rather than diversity alone. Since some combinations of crops add to productivity but others do not, productivity-related crop choice may not guarantee in situ conservation of crop diversity on its own. Alternative conservation solutions may well be needed for that.

Abstract Most programmes that incentivise the supply of public goods such as biodiversity conservation on private land in Europe are financed through the public purse. However, new ideas for how to fund biodiversity conservation are urgently needed, given recent reviews of the poor state of global biodiversity. In this paper, we investigate the use of private funding for biodiversity conservation through an offset market. The environmental objective is to increase some measure of biodiversity in a region (‘net gain’) despite the loss of land for new housing. Farmers create biodiversity credits by changing their land management and then sell these credits to housing developers who are required to more than offset the impacts of new housing development on a specific indicator of biodiversity. Combining an economic model of market operation with an ecological model linking land management to bird populations, we examine the operation, costs, and biodiversity impacts of such a (hypothetical) market as the target level of net gain is increased. A general result is established for the impacts on price and quantity in the offset market as the net gain target is made more ambitious. For a case-study site in Scotland, we find that as the net gain target is increased, the number of offsets traded in equilibrium falls, as does the market-clearing offset price. Changes in the spatial pattern of gains and losses in our biodiversity index also occur as the net gain target is raised.

Abstract Legumes, which currently show low production levels in the European Union, can reduce negative environmental externalities of agricultural systems by lowering nitrogen (N) fertilization and increasing protein self-sufficiency. This has led to the introduction of coupled support in France, in contrast to Germany. However, the German implementation of the Nitrates Directive is more favorable for legumes. Our study assesses economic and environmental impacts of these two policies affecting legume production. We employ the bio-economic model FarmDyn, representing French and German dairy farms. The results suggest that relatively low levels of coupled support can lead to modest increases in legume production, but that more substantial changes require considerable subsidies. Allowing the French farm to apply manure on legumes, as is already possible in Germany, fosters legume production while considerably reducing the use of synthetic N fertilizer and imported protein-rich feed. However, environmental benefits are limited.

Abstract Agriculture and food systems are in urgent need of transformation. Various foresight reports unpack food systems’ challenges and propose diverse pathways of change towards sustainability. We interrogate the framings and proposed pathways of eleven selected reports from a food system perspective, with a focus on environmental and climate change implications. We synthesize key drivers of food systems and their impact on food system outcomes. We distil trends and strategies identified across the reports and their scenarios and discuss the diversity of ‘sustainability pathways’ and ‘solution spaces’. There is general agreement that resource protection and adaptation balanced with significant greenhouse gas emission reductions are vital to food system transformation. There is less consensus on the choice of change options and how to address potential trade-offs. While new technologies or consumption changes are described, more attention needs to be paid to overcoming blind spots like implications for equity or changes in governance mechanisms.