Download or read book Trust and consumers willingness to pay for safe and certified safe vegetables in West African citiesTrust and consumers willingness to pay for safe and certified safe vegetables in West African cities A comparative analysis of Tamale Ouagadougou Bamenda and Bamako written by Christina Seeger and published by Logos Verlag Berlin GmbH. This book was released on 2021-11-08 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Smallholder farmers cultivating in West African cities often lack access to irrigation water and may use wastewater to irrigate their fields, particularly in the dry season. Wastewater contaminates vegetables with pathogens so that local consumers are likely to be exposed to health risks. Market data on consumers' actual payments for safety improved (= pathogen reduced) vegetables are not available in West Africa as vegetables differing in safety levels are sold, due to an information deficit on the consumers' side, at a uniform market price. Certification and repeated purchase experience may reduce these information deficits. For both market signals to be effective, trust is required. This book analyses the role of trust in explaining consumers' maximum willingness to pay (WTP) for safe and certified safe food in a Hicksian framework. This theory is tested using household data (n = 2,662) generated from contingent valuation surveys undertaken in Tamale, Ouagadougou, Bamenda and Bamako. The findings show that local consumers are willing to pay substantially higher prices (+40\% to +160\%) for certified safe vegetables. They further suggest that trust in farmers and traders reduces WTP and trust in certifying institutions increases WTP for certified safe vegetables. Most WTPs were found to be construct valid. They are therefore taken as trustworthy expressions of consumers' preferences for safety improved vegetables. These results stress the need to introduce vegetable certification in West African cities.

Download or read book Consumer Perceptions of Fruit and Vegetable Quality written by Keraita, B. and published by International Water Management Institute (IWMI). This book was released on 2015-10-06 with total page 35 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With increasing change of traditional diets, and the emergence of new supply and marketing chains, urban food consumers in low-income countries are faced with multiple food safety challenges, among which microbial contamination and pesticides are key concerns for fruits and vegetables sold on urban markets in West Africa. Although consumers have a genuine interest in healthy food, and are willing to pay premiums, their interpretation of food quality and risks deviates from scientific health risk assessments and does not translate into recommended risk mitigation behavior. To safeguard public health, alternative measures are needed to support consumers’ risk awareness and decision making. The review looked at common and less-common options to trigger and support behavioral change, including safety labeling (certification), corporate social responsibility models, incentive systems and social marketing of safe practices, to address potential food safety risks from farming in urban and peri-urban areas. Overall, it appears that regulatory measures for risk management, including certifications, will be – for now – less effective in the West African setup due to low educational levels in view of chemical and microbial risk, diverse and often informal food chains, poor safety supporting infrastructure and weak institutional capacities for compliance monitoring.