Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics最新文献

This study investigates the impact of crop insurance participation on farmers' adoption of environmentally friendly agricultural practices using microsurvey data from the China Land Economic Survey 2020. Propensity score matching and an endogenous switching probit model are applied to address potential selection bias. We find that crop insurance participation has significant and positive effects on farmers' adoption of straw return and biological pesticides. Specifically, it increases the probability of adopting straw return and biological pesticides by 45.6% and 46.3%, respectively. These impacts are particularly large for younger, larger scale and more risk-averse farmers. Our results highlight the necessity of supporting crop insurance participation to encourage desirable environmental outcomes. We also discuss potential policies to facilitate crop insurance uptake in rural China.

Despite the popularity of choice experiments (CEs) for the valuation of environmental goods and services, some of its shortcomings have been only partially addressed by the literature. Among these, of particular saliency are the hypothetical nature of CEs and the lack of information on joint choices (e.g. choices made by couples) in traditional CEs. In this study, we contribute to filling these gaps by investigating joint choices concerning cheeses produced via different processes, involving environmental and social sustainability features. We use a two-stage preference elicitation approach, using first stated and then real consumption choices collected from a sample of 90 couples. In the first stage, each member of the couples separately took part in a web survey with a hypothetical CE. In the second, these couples jointly engaged in a field experiment with monetary incentives in which they jointly chose the cheeses to purchase. This approach allows us to evaluate the role of individual preferences in shaping joint choices and to investigate whether predictions from stated choice data are congruent with, and validated by, real purchase data. We use CE data to estimate individual preferences with discrete choice models and use joint purchase data via the Multiple Discrete-Continuous Nested Extreme Value model. Results suggest that joint real choices follow a substantively different decision process from that of individual stated choices.

By combining a hypothetical labelled-choice experiment and a between-subject design experiment, this study explores the influence of carbon labels on low-emission meat consumption. The results reveal that carbon labels are effective in encouraging consumers to choose low-emission conventional meat products. However, carbon labels are ineffective in persuading consumers to choose novel meat alternatives. Additionally, the results suggest that the efficiency of carbon labels depends on their format. The traffic-light carbon label was identified as the most effective, reducing carbon emissions from meat consumption by 21.55%, followed by the carbon-reduction label at 18.07% and the carbon-neutral label at 2.6%. The findings raise implications for policymakers in developing standards for carbon labels.

We examine the role of soil conservation practices (SCPs) in promoting sustainable agri-food production to achieve food and nutrition security. To this end, we use the endogenous treatment regression model, as it allows us to address the selection bias associated with SCP adoption. Data sourced from the 2020 China Land Economic Survey, collected by Nanjing Agricultural University, China, are examined. First, we analyse the association between the adoption of SCPs and rice yield; we focus on rice as it is the most common staple food globally. Then, we examine the links between SCP adoption and dietary diversity and the consumption of seven specific foods (rice, potato, pork, poultry, egg, fruits and vegetable oil). This allows us to glean insights into how SCPs may affect the dietary patterns in rural communities. The findings show that adopting SCPs is associated with an 8.5% increase in rice yield. Rice yields increase with the intensification of SCP adoption. Disaggregated analysis suggests that low-income farmers receive the most rice yield promotion by adopting SCPs compared with wealthier ones. Meanwhile, among the three SCPs (i.e. soil remediation, commercial organic fertiliser application and formulated fertilisation) considered in our study, only formulated fertilisation increases rice yields. Furthermore, adopting SCPs is associated with higher consumption of protein-rich foods and lower dietary diversity.

In 2022, the United Nations (UN) endorsed a resolution to end plastic pollution, with an objective to have a legally binding agreement in place by 2024. The clothing industry uses a significant amount of plastic, which generates plastic pollution through both the mismanagement of clothing waste and microplastics released during the washing of clothes. Consequently, clothing needs to be made without plastic fibres or synthetic chemicals to comply with the UN's resolution and stop contributing to plastic pollution. In this paper, we develop an economy-wide model and impose a tax on the conventional clothing sector or subsidise plastic-free clothing in different regions until all clothing produced is free of plastics and synthetic chemicals. We analyse the impact of these policies on GDP, welfare, output and land use across six policy scenarios. If only some regions tax clothing production and not others, the production of conventional clothing increases in untaxed regions (i.e. there is conventional clothing ‘leakage’). As clothing producers import some of their plastic inputs, increased production of conventional clothing in untaxed regions dampens the reduction in plastic production in regions with a clothing tax. Conventional clothing ‘leakage’ does not occur in the subsidy scenarios, and global plastic production decreases by more compared with tax scenarios. Under both a tax and the subsidy, synthetic chemical and plastic-free clothing production increase global demand for ‘natural’ alternatives such as plant-based fibres, oil seeds, natural rubber and forestry products. This causes significant land use change in the model at the expense of food-based agricultural products.