Food Studies Commons^™

Consideration Of Nutrients Of Public Health Concern Highlighted In The Dietary Guidelines For Americans 2020–2025 Among A Large Sample Of Us Primary Shoppers, Christopher Gustafson, Devin Rose

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

The objective of this research is to estimate the proportion of consumers who consider nutrients identified in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2020-2025 (DGA) as being of public health concern during food choice using a large, population-weighted sample of U.S. residents. A question was included in a bi-monthly survey of consumer scanner panel members, asking whether respondents considered each of eight nutrients in a check-all-that-apply format. Four of these nutrients are under-consumed nutrients, while three are nutrients to avoid. Calories was additionally included, as over-consumption of calories causes weight gain. Weighted mean proportions and 95% confidence intervals were …

Active Consideration Of Future Health Can Be Prompted By Simple Health Messages And Improves Nutritional Quality Of Food Choices, Christopher R. Gustafson

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

Many choices that people face daily have implications for future health and well-being. Choices about what foods to purchase and consume are one of the most frequent—and universal choices—that people must make. The ongoing rise of overweight and obesity rates—and associated diet-related diseases—in the US and many other countries illustrates the future health consequences of low-quality dietary choices. While a large body of research shows that individuals with a tendency to consider the future make a wide range of healthier decisions, research on limited attention and exogenous factors influencing choice suggests that attention to the future consequences of choices may …

Food Insecurity In An Anthropogenic Age: An Analysis Into How Consumer Demand Will Shift During Crisis Events, Chloe G. Parsons, Christina Kuchmaner

Ursidae: The Undergraduate Research Journal at the University of Northern Colorado

Consumers in the United States may need to adjust their food demand due to food insecurity caused by climate warming events. Research has focused on how climate change impacts food supply chains and distribution; however, there was little research on how consumers responded to these changes. This study analyzed how consumers across the United States responded to food insecurity caused by crisis events (i.e. pandemics and climate change), how consumers shifted from grocery store vendors to local food vendors, and if migration or food miles may increase based on potential food shortages. One study was initiated through survey and a …

Perceptions And Readiness Of Foodservice Establishments At The Onset Of The Covid-19 Pandemic In Metro Manila And Region Iv-A, Philippines, Von Ryan M. Ebron, Irma U. Danao, Marie Faye R. Nguyen- Orca, Anna Teresa O. Orillo, Joyce P. Parco

Journal of Economics, Management and Agricultural Development

The study evaluated the perceptions and readiness of food business operators about COVID-19 through an online survey with respondents from Metro Manila and Region IV-A. Generally, they are knowledgeable about COVID-19 and its transmission, as reflected in their scores. The same is true about their attitude towards “new normal” practices. Years of operation, asset size, and continued operations and delivery services showed significant positive correlation with attitude scores. The resilience of some food business operators may be attributed to having more resources that enabled them to carry the added costs of what the new normal foodservice practices entailed. New normal …

The Adoption Of Food Safety Practices And The Implications Of Regulation For Small Scale Farms, Elizabeth Canales, Juan Silva, Joy Anderson

Journal of Extension

In this article we examine the adoption of food safety practices among produce growers in the south and discuss implications of food safety regulations in the U.S. Produce growers have adopted standard food safety practices to varying degrees, but there is still an adoption gap, particularly among small scale operations. Market-driven and regulatory food safety enforcement continues to tighten, and this can further hinder market access for small scale producers.

Us Consumer Identification Of The Health Benefits Of Dietary Fiber And Consideration Of Fiber When Making Food Choices, Christopher Gustafson, Devin J. Rose

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

The purposes of this study were to (1) determine beliefs in the health benefits of dietary fiber, an under-consumed nutrient of public health concern, and (2) determine the relationship between beliefs about dietary fiber and consideration of fiber when making food choices. We conducted a nationally representative within-subject randomized online survey of 42,018 US primary shoppers in May–June 2021. Participants selected health benefits they believed were associated with consumption of fiber from a list of six benefits recognized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), one indirect benefit, and one unrelated benefit. Respondents then indicated which nutrients, if any, they …

The Role Of Risk In Farmland Contract Choices, Chelsea Arnold, Jisang Yu, Mykel Taylor, Leah H. Palm-Forster, Simanti Banerjee

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

Understanding the role of risk in farmland leasing contract choices is important to assess the welfare consequences of farm policies or environmental changes that affect production risk. We use a unique dataset of landowners and tenants in Kansas to examine the role of risk in their farmland leasing contract choices. We find that greater production risk and more risk-averse landowners encourage fixed cash rent contracts. As many variables can potentially affect contract choices, we use a penalized regression to show that the inclusion of relationship variables leads to little change in the main results.

The Potential Cost Of Regulation Of Methane And Nitrous Oxide Emissions In U.S. Agriculture, Tshepelayi Kabata, Lilyan E. Fulginiti, Richard K. Perrin

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

Background: Most studies on the environmental impacts of agriculture have attempted to measure environmental impacts but have not assessed the ability of the sector to reduce or mitigate such impacts. Only a few studies have examined greenhouse gas emissions from the sector. This paper assesses the ability of states in the U.S. to reduce agricultural emissions of methane and nitrous oxide, two major greenhouse gases (GHGs) with important global warming potential.

Methods: The analysis evaluates Färe’s PAC (pollution abatement cost) for each state and year, a measure of the potential opportunity costs of subjecting the sector to GHG …

How Do Consumers’ Beliefs About Product Price, Taste, And Health Affect Attention To Health-Differentiated Product-Sets?, Henriette Gitungwa, Christopher R. Gustafson

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

Objectives: Consumers facemyriad food products in supermarkets, obviating consideration of all options. Consumers are likely to direct scarce attention to products they believe will provide them the best outcome. However, consumers may hold inaccurate beliefs— particularly about health attributes which can lead them to omit items from consideration that they would have optimally considered We examine how consumers’ beliefs about the relative price, taste, and healthiness of food product sets affect the healthiness of the set of products they consider.

Conclusions: Believes about relative differences in nutritional quality of foods importantly influence consideration of products, potentially perpetuating misconceptions about relative …

Simulated Dataset Of Corn Response To Nitrogen Over Thousands Of Fields And Multiple Years In Illinois, German Mandrini, Sotirios V. Archontoulis, Cameron M. Pittelkow, Taro Mieno, Nicolas F. Martin

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

Nitrogen (N) fertilizer recommendations for corn (Zea mays L.) in the US Midwest have been a puzzle for several decades, without agreement among stakeholders for which methodology is the best to balance environmental and economic outcomes. Part of the reason is the lack of long-term data of crop responses to N over multiple fields since trial data is often limited in the number of soils and years it can explore. To overcome this limitation, we designed an analytical platform based on crop simulations run over millions of farming scenarios over extensive geographies. The database was calibrated and validated using data …

Causes And Consequences Of Fake Transparency/Excess Information In Food Claims, Susweta Ray, Konstantinos Giannakas

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

This study develops novel multi-stage game-theoretic models of heterogeneous firms and consumers in vertically differentiated food product markets with asymmetric information to analyze the economic causes and market and welfare consequences of excess information/ fake transparency in food labeling. Analytical results indicate that the firms’ incentives to adopt the excess information strategy, the Nash equilibrium configuration of firms adopting the strategy, and the market and welfare impacts of excess information are case-specific and dependent on the consumer reaction to excess information, the quality of the firms’ products, the degree of product differentiation between the brand producing firms, and whether the …

Consumer Measures Of Local Food System Performance And Shopping Behavior Across Covid, Azita Varziri

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

This dissertation consists of three essays: In the first essay, we utilize a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to measure the residents’ perceptions of the local food system performance. Local food system (LFS) components are classified into related measures that may help explain the overall performance scores provided. LFS performance measures are explored across 15 different communities in the U.S. South. The second essay explores the awareness and performance differences toward farmers markets, including the markets themselves and the corresponding local food product quality, product diversity, and markets infrastructure across different age-range groups and community sizes in Southern states. Finally, in …

The Economics Of A “Portion Size Reduction” Policy, Hanin Hosni, Konstantinos Giannakas

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

This study develops novel models of heterogeneous consumer preferences for different dining options and imperfect competition among food suppliers to analyze the market and welfare effects of portion size reduction (PSR) for food away from home. Different scenarios on the nature of differentiation of the dining options, the information available to consumers, and their response to links between portion size and obesity, food waste, and climate change are considered within this framework. The market and welfare effects of the policy are quantified using a simulation analysis. The analysis shows that the market and welfare effects of the policy are case-specific …

Measuring Palatability As A Linear Combination Of Nutrient Levels In Food Items, Jeffrey S. Young

Faculty & Staff Research and Creative Activity

It well known that palatability and nutritional quality of foods and/or diets are viewed as being in tension with one another. While there exist multiple measures of healthiness, there are no such measures for tastiness. This gap limits the degree to which researchers can investigate this tension and its implications for dietary behavior and hence public health and nutrition policy. The scope of future work concerning the dietary behavior of Americans would expand greatly if researchers better understood consumers’ willingness to eat certain foods, which matters as much as recommending those foods for them to eat in the first place. …

Weather Impacts The Agricultural Production Efficiency Of Wheat: The Importance Of Precipitation Shocks, Bowen Chen, Elliott James Dennis, Allen M. Featherstone

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

Many studies have explored the determinants of technical efficiency in crop production, but fewer have examined how weather might change technical efficiency over time. We estimate weather effects on technical efficiency using data from 540 Kansas winter wheat farms from 2007/08 to 2016/17 using a panel stochastic frontier model that controls for farm-specific heterogeneity with farm fixed effects. Results show that precipitation is nonlinearly related to technical efficiency and that extreme temperature is associated with lower technical efficiency. Improving resilience to precipitation shocks is key to sustained efficient wheat production in Kansas.

Are Rice Markets In Bangladesh Efficiently Pricing Rice Based On Quality? An Empirical Assessment, Indrani Saha

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Rice is an important staple for more than half of the world’s population and is the main staple in Bangladesh, accounting for 65 percent to 70 percent of the daily calorie intake. The importance of rice consumption and the high level of food insecurity in Bangladesh highlights the importance of having markets that efficiently price rice according to consumer preferences. This study aims to assess how effectively rice prices in Bangladesh are reflective of rice quality. More specifically, we estimate how the rice market is currently pricing selected rice quality attributes, such as broken percentage, chalk percentage, kernel size and …

“The Role Of Poultry On Food Insecurity In Mozambique”, Austin Heinisch

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

Hunger, poverty, and starvation in developing countries are some of the most prevalent challenges facing the world today but many people outside of these areas are not fully aware as to just how bad it is. In the country of Mozambique, where the following research took place, food insecurity levels are rampant, and many different groups/companies are trying to change that. Through a service-learning study abroad program in the summer of 2019, my group and I worked with the local company New Horizons to research ways in which poultry production for both the company and their rural out growers could …

Consumer Valuation Of And Attitudes Towards Novel Foods Produced With New Plant Engineering Techniques: A Review, John C. Beghin, Christopher Gustafson

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

We follow the PRISMA extension for scoping reviews to review the emerging international body of empirical evidence on consumers’ attitudes and willingness to pay (WTP) for novel foods produced with New Plant Engineering Techniques (NPETs). NPETs include genome/gene editing, cisgenesis, intragenesis, and RNA interference. These novel foods are often beneficial for the environment and human health and more sustainable under increasingly prevalent climate extremes. These techniques can also improve animal welfare and disease resistance when applied to animals. Despite these abilities of NPETs, evidence suggests that many, but not all, consumers discount these novel foods relative to conventional ones. Our …

What Determines The Success And Failure Of Environmental Crowdfunding?, Takahiro Kubo, Diogo Veríssimo, Shinya Uryu, Taro Mieno, Douglas Macmillan

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

Online crowdfunding can help address the perennial financial shortfalls in environmental conservation and management. Although many online crowdfunding campaigns fail to collect any funds due to not achieving their targets, little is known about what drives success. To address this knowledge gap, we applied a mixed-methods approach to data from 473 successful and failed campaigns hosted on the online crowdfunding platform Readyfor. We found that fundraising performance varied by topic, with campaigns on pet animal management outperforming those focussed on landscape management and sustainable use. We also found that marketing strategies associated with online findability and increased reach through social …

Relative Valuation Of Food And Non-Food Risks With A Comparison To Actuarial Values: A Best–Worst Approach, Kayode Ajewole, Elliott James Dennis, Ted C. Schroeder, Jason Bergtold

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

This study empirically tests the relative importance that U.S. consumers place on immediate and long-term food and non-food risks. We use a best–worst survey method to elicit relative rankings and weights for each risk in terms of its perceived cost and likelihood. Immediate food risks are perceived to be more costly but less likely than long-term food risks. Immediate non-food risks are perceived to be both more costly and likely than long-term non-food risks. Overall, food risks are perceived to be less expensive than non-food risks. The combination of perceived cost and likelihood is used to define a measure of …

High Bmi Predicts Attention To Less Healthy Product Sets: Can A Prompt Lead To Consideration Of Healthier Sets Of Products?, Christopher Gustafson, Kristina Arslain, Devin Rose

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

While the food environment has been implicated in diet-related health disparities, individuals’ ability to shape the food environment by limiting attention to a subset of products has not been studied. We examine the relationship between BMI category and consideration set—the products the individual considers before making a final choice—in an online hypothetical shopping experiment. Specifically, we focus on the healthiness of the consideration set the individual selected. Secondly, we examined the interaction of a health prompt (versus a no-prompt control) with BMI category on the healthiness of the consideration set. We used linear probability models to document the relationship between …

The Relationship Between Bodyweight Status And Weight Perception Explains Differences In Calories Ordered In A Food Choice Exercise, Jean-Claude Mbarushimana, Christopher Gustafson, Henriette Gitungwa, Eliana Zeballos

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

Understanding food choice is critical to be able to address the rise in obesity rates around the globe. In this paper, we examine the relationship between measured (BMI, using self-reported height and weight) and perceived weight status with the number of calories ordered in a controlled online food choice exercise. A total of 1044 participants completed an online food choice exercise in which they selected ingredients for a sandwich from five categories: meat/protein, cheese, spread/dressing, bread, and vegetables. We examine the number of calories ordered by participants and use linear regression to study the relationship of BMI category relative to …

Factory To Table: A Philosophic Analysis Of The Justice Or Lack Thereof Of Agricultural Markets, Will Carter

CMC Senior Theses

How food is produced has dramatic consequences on how we live, our world’s justice, and the future of our planet. In a world increasingly driven by neoliberalism, agricultural markets have been incentivized to industrialize, globalize, and consolidate. This has resulted in the global dominance of a new type of agriculture, industrial agriculture, driven by the market logic of lowering costs and raising profits. Industrial agriculture has undoubtedly generated the profound benefit of cheaper, more plentiful food in much of the world. These favorable innovations lead many scholars to argue that free markets produce the most just and efficient arrangements for …

Assessment Of Grain Safety In Developing Nations, Jose R. Mendoza

Department of Food Science and Technology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Grains are the most widely consumed foods worldwide, with maize (Zea mays) being frequently consumed in developing countries where it feeds approximately 900 million people under the poverty line of 2 USD per day. While grain handling practices are acceptable in most developed nations, many developing nations still face challenges such as inadequate field management, drying, and storage. Faulty grain handling along with unavoidably humid climates result in recurrent fungal growth and spoilage, which compromises both the end-quality and safety of the harvest. This becomes particularly problematic where there is little awareness about health risks associated with poor …

Food Policy: Stability, Sustainability, And Safety, Gary D. Lynne

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

Everyone needs to eat, and eat well, as it is essential to the process of slowing down the pace to and time of our death, the point of maximum entropy for each person. As a result, it is perhaps the best example of the need to seek one’s Self-interest. It also puts us in the position, however, to more easily Empathize, walk-in-the-shoes of someone who may not have enough food, or the best kind of food, and help in forming a shared Other-interest, too. As a result, we might choose to support, with our tax money, some kind of a …

Is The World Converging To A ‘Western Diet’?, Azzeddine Azzam

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

Objective: To test the nutrition transition hypothesis of global dietary convergence to a ‘Western diet’.

Design: Consumer-waste-adjusted FAO Food Balance Sheets are used to construct for each country a Western Diet Similarity Index (WSI), expressed as a ratio of calories from animal-sourced foods, oils, fats and sweeteners to total per capita calories. β-Convergence and associated speed are estimated by growth regressions using 1992–2013 panel data. Speed of convergence, a non-linear function of income per capita, globalisation and urbanisation, determines the steady-state or long-term global WSI. The long-term global WSI is compared with the WSI of the group of countries with …

Net Return Distributions When Metaphylaxis Is Used To Control Bovine Respiratory Disease In High Health-Risk Cattle, Elliott James Dennis, Ted C. Schroeder, David G. Renter

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

This study’s objective was to estimate net returns and return risk for antimicrobial metaphylaxis options to manage bovine respiratory disease (BRD) in high health-risk feedlot cattle. The effectiveness of antimicrobials for metaphylaxis varies by cattle population. How differing antimicrobial effectiveness translates to net return profitability for heterogeneous cattle populations is less understood. Net returns and return risk were assessed using a net return simulation model adapted to allow for heterogeneity in high health-risk cattle placement characteristics and antimicrobial choice to control BRD. The net return model incorporated how antimicrobials modify BRD health and performance outcomes. Health and performance outcomes were …

Tax Policy: Pay The Price, Gary D. Lynne

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

Taxes are the price we pay in order to obtain many of the outcomes pursued in the shared Other-interest. So, Metaeconomics in contrast to Microeconomics gives a substantive analytical system for dealing with the tax question, because of recognizing the Other-interest. Metaeconomics clarifies that taxation is about paying for, and thus bringing forth the payoffs from that which we share, like recording deeds and titles to private property; enforcing property rights, which is essential to a Market; licensing, registering, and enforcing patents; military, police, and fire services; road and harbor construction and maintenance; dams and reservoirs to provide for water …

Health Policy: Universal Pre-Existing Conditions, Gary D. Lynne

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

Next to food policy, perhaps no domestic policy issue has raised the ire of more people than that related to the healthcare system. The US Affordable Care Act, which was based in and otherwise formulated with a heavy orientation towards the shared Other-interest in health, has been rejected outright by many who see the healthcare system is only to facilitate maximizing one’s own Self-interest. The latter perspective is easily understood, as there is perhaps nothing more in one’s own Self-interest then taking care of one’s health. So, it would be easily expected that many people would consider mainly their own …

Introduction To Metaeconomics, Gary D. Lynne

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

Metaeconomics is fundamentally about the problem of having too much emphasis on the Market or too much emphasis on the Government. It is about the essential need to bring empirical reality and ethics into finding balance: It is essential to achieving a good capitalism. Why? Well, because of the natural tendency to excessive Greed. As DeWaal (2009) would have it, we live in an age of Empathy: Ego based Greed is out. The Greed needs to be tempered, balanced, and perhaps bounded, with Empathy-based ethics. And, as Metaeconomics makes clear, it is because there is a dual nature of human …