Theses and Dissertations

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Collart, Alba J.

Committee Member

Interis, Matthew G.

Committee Member

Maples, Joshua G.

Date of Degree

8-10-2018

Document Type

Graduate Thesis - Open Access

Major

Agriculture (Agricultural Economics)

Degree Name

Master of Science

College

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Department

Department of Agricultural Economics

Abstract

In developed countries, approximately 222 million tons of food is wasted at the consumer level per year (FAO, 2011). These amounts of food waste have large social, economic, and environmental impacts. Studies have shown that one of the main causes of food waste in developed countries is consumers’ elevated expectations for appearances in fresh produce, causing imperfect produce to be wasted. In this study, we estimate consumer willingness to pay for sweet potatoes with five different skinning injury levels using a Vickrey 2nd price non- hypothetical auction. We test if consumer knowledge about (1) the percentage of blemishing, (2) the relationship between blemished produce and food waste, and (3) the environmental impacts of food waste influences willingness-to-pay for blemished produce. We find that consumer bids were affected by knowing the blemishing levels and after gaining knowledge about food waste and its environmental impacts.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/20995

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