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Valuing health risk in agriculture: a choice experiment approach to pesticide use in China

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Abstract

This paper presents a choice experiment approach to investigate farmers’ valuations for health risk changes associated with pesticide use in Anqiu County, China. An empirical comparison on the disparity between farmers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for a health risk reduction and willingness to accept (WTA) for the same risk increase is also conducted. Respondents were randomly assigned into the WTP group or the WTA group. Four attributes (health consequence, baseline risk, risk change size, and price) were identified and included. The results show that cancer consequence due to pesticide use decreases the utility of the farmer. A higher baseline risk has a higher WTP to reduce the risk and a higher probability of receiving compensation. If the health risk change size is bigger, it will result in a higher WTP and higher compensation. Household income, education, and age have significant and positive impacts on farmers’ WTP. Farmers who are more educated or female are more likely to accept the compensation scheme if health risks increase. The marginal WTA for the same risk change is about two times higher than the marginal WTP. The findings of this study can contribute to the literature comparing people’s WTP and WTA in a discrete choice experiment on valuing health risk changes associated with pesticide use.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the National Natural Science Fund Project (41671170) and the Economy and Environment Program for Southeast Asia (EEPSEA) for providing the financial support to undertake this study. The authors are grateful to three anonymous referees for very helpful comments and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology (ESPRE), Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

    Jianjun Jin

  2. Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Jianjun Jin, Wenyu Wang, Rui He & Haozhou Gong

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  1. Jianjun Jin
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  2. Wenyu Wang
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  3. Rui He
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  4. Haozhou Gong
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Correspondence to Jianjun Jin.

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Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues

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Jin, J., Wang, W., He, R. et al. Valuing health risk in agriculture: a choice experiment approach to pesticide use in China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 24, 17526–17533 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-017-9418-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-017-9418-2

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