Is There a “Cage-Free” Lunch in U.S. Egg Production? Public Views of Laying-Hen Housing Attributes
Daniel Ochs,
Christopher Wolf (),
Nicole Widmar and
Courtney Bir
Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, 2019, vol. 44, issue 2
Abstract:
Animal welfare–related production attributes are increasingly considered by U.S. consumers making food purchasing decisions and U.S. voters at the ballot box. This research considers U.S. consumer preferences for egg production attributes. The results reveal preferences for less hen stress, more natural hen behavior, and improved worker health and welfare. We propose an index combining animal welfare scores and consumer preference shares for determining preferred combinations of egg production attributes. When weighting hen housing systems by consumer preference for animal and worker welfare attributes, the preferred system is enriched colony housing, which differs from recent retailer commitments to cage-free aviaries.
Keywords: Agricultural and Food Policy; Demand and Price Analysis; Livestock Production/Industries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)
Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/287982/files/J ... 2CWolf%2C345-361.pdf (application/pdf)
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:jlaare:287982
DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.287982
Access Statistics for this article
More articles in Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics from Western Agricultural Economics Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().