A Study Of Consumer’s WTP For Traceability Information-Case Of Traceable Pork

Food safety is a worldwide public health issue. The World Health Organization has identified food safety as a priority area of public health, and has developed a global strategy for food safety. Food safety issues fare becoming more and more complicated. In the highly anticipated 2015 Boao Forum for Asia, "food security, international co-governance" sub-forum, domestic and foreign politicians, academics once again called attention to global food security. The 2013 Annual Report on China’s Social Development released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences(CASS) on December 25, 2013 shows that the Chinese public is most dissatisfied with food safety. With the economic development and the improvement of living standards, addressing food safety problems becomes increasingly urgent in many developing countries, including China.In this study, consumers’ willingness to pay for farming, slaughter and processing, distribution and marketing, and government certification information was investigated in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, China using an experimental auction and real choice experiment based on incentive compatibility of the non-hypothetical elicitation method. No significant differences in consumers’ willingness to pay were revealed by the experimental auction and real choice experiment on the whole, and results from both nonhypothetical experimental methods demonstrated that consumers were willing to pay certain premiums for all four types of traceability information and had the highest willingness to pay for government certification information. These results indicate that consumers trust in pork safety protection under governmental supervision. Moreover, it was found that government certification information played a significant role in improving consumer utility, demonstrating that consumers paid close attention to safety risks in farming. Therefore, this study predicts that the introduction of governmental supervision into the pork traceability system and establishment of a system for collecting traceability information starting from the stage of pig farming will play important roles in meeting consumer demands for pork quality and safety, as well as promoting the development of traceable food policies. At the same time, establishing a reliable traceable food system will be the only way to meet international food safety standards, master the initiative in international trade export, deal with international trade barriers, and contribute to food exports.