摘要
Biodiversity is one of the important aspects of Agricultural Heritage Systems and some consumers might be wiling to pay a higher price for agricultural commodities that are produced in a way that conserves biodiversity. If so, whether can market-oriented policies to promote adding the value of biodiversity to agricultural products be used to conserve biodiversity？ Our study focuses on consumer reactions to “life brand” product, which is labeled as “Stork-raising rice” in Toyooka City in Japan, produced environmentally-friendly agricultural practices for the revival of extinct stork. Using data of choice experiment and Latent Segment model, we analyzed whether these agricultural products can achieve higher market prices. The results showed that consumer, who had knowledge that stork populations had been revived because of changes in agricultural practice, are willing to buy expensive rice that improve biodiversity conservation for stork. However, consumers who bought this rice because of a preference for reduced-pesticide or organic food, without knowledge of revived stork history, were not willing to do so. The majority of agricultural product consumers in Japan are this type of consumer. Thus, the promotion of biodiversity conservation by only “life brand” agricultural products is not enough. Therefore, government support and public activities are indispensable for biodiversity conservation.
生物多样性是农业遗产系统的重要组成部分,一些消费者倾向于花费更高的价格去购买通过保护生物多样性的方式生产的农产品。那么,具有促进农产品生物多样性价值提高作用的市场导向型政策能否被用来保护生物多样性?我们的研究着眼于消费者对"life brand"产品的反应,研究对象之一就是在丰冈(Toyooka)销售的标有"Stork-raising"标识的大米,大米生产所采取的环境友好型措施有助于濒危鹳的保护。同时,运用选择实验,我们分析了此类农产品能否获得更高的市场价格。结果表明,对鹳数量上升是由于农业措施的改变这一事实有所了解的消费者,他们愿意购买较贵的大米以促进生物多样性的保护。然而,还有一部分消费者仅仅出于对绿色食品的偏好而选择购买价格高昂的大米,他们缺少对鹳复苏历史的了解,因此他们并不愿意为了促进生物多样性的保护而花费更高。事实上,日本绝大多数的农产品消费者均属于后者。因此,仅通过"life brand"农产品来促进生物多样性的保护是远远不够的,政府支持和公共活动对生物多样性保护而言是必不可少的。
