Abstract #36

# 36
Willingness to pay for pork chops and chicken breasts: Are hunters (and those who approve of hunting) different (from the average US consumer)?
Elizabeth Byrd*1, Nicole Widmar1, John Lee1, 1Purdue University, W. Lafayette, IN.

Consumers, in general, are concerned about how their food, especially meat, is raised. This concern extends to animal welfare practices and the social and environmental impacts of production. Recently, studies have focused on consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for various production process attributes, such as gestation crate-free hog production, cage-free egg production, and rBST-free milk production. However, most studies have been limited to general samples of US residents or consumers. Other research has linked demographics, including pet ownership, to increased concern for pig welfare (McKendree, Croney, and Widmar, 2014). Relationships with animals, even those that are not consumed for food, are related to consumers’ level of concern for farm animal welfare. Studies have explored the public’s acceptance of lethal management of wildlife and feral animals. We seek to determine how views of wild animals, both consumptive and non-consumptive, may affect the level of concern for livestock animal welfare. Concern for animal welfare can extend to include WTP for attributes of the production process that affect animal welfare. The next step is to determine how interactions with wild animals, in terms of hunting (or approval of hunting), are related to concern for farm animal welfare. Preliminary results indicate those who regularly hunt are willing to pay less for animal welfare attributes such as cage or crate free production and antibiotic free production. For example, non-hunters have a mean WTP of $3.13/lb for USDA-verified crate-free pork chops, but those who regularly hunt are not WTP anything. Likewise, non-hunters are willing to pay more than twice what hunters are willing to pay for USDA-verified antibiotic-free production. The goal of this analysis is to determine how consumers’ outdoor activities and key demographic factors (sex, pet ownership, and opinions on hunting) are related to the relative importance of food values for meat purchases and WTP for animal welfare production process attributes.

Key Words: animal welfare, consumer demand, preferences

Speaker Bio
Elizabeth Byrd is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University.  Elizabeth holds a BS from Purdue University, a MS from Cornell University, and JD from West Virginia University College of Law.  She is interested in research and Extension work which links regulatory and legal questions with agricultural producer decision making.