Measuring changes in pork demand, welfare effects, and the role of information sources in the event of an African swine fever outbreak in the United States

Abstract

African swine fever (ASF) has never been detected in the U.S., but the current global outbreak threatens to change that. Although ASF poses no known risk to human health and is not a food safety concern, little is known about the response in U.S. consumer demand in case of an outbreak. We use an online survey experiment, following the one-and-one-half-bound dichotomous choice contingent valuation approach to estimate changes in consumers’ willingness to pay for pork in case of an ASF outbreak. Using these estimates, we find that demand for unprocessed pork (processed pork) products in the U.S. is predicted to shift downward by approximately 32 % (30 %) in the case of an ASF outbreak. Overall, the total annual welfare loss is predicted to be $55.46 billion in the pork market. We find that those consumers who are unaware about ASF, perceive it to be a risk to human health, and eat pork infrequently have a relatively larger reduction in willingness to pay for pork following an outbreak. Further, about 23 % of the survey respondents would stop purchasing pork products altogether following an ASF outbreak. Results also indicate that government institutions are most trusted when it comes to sharing news about food safety, strongly suggesting the importance of public institutions in generating awareness prior to and during an ASF outbreak.