Expressing values in agricultural markets: An economic policy perspective

David Conner ()

Agriculture and Human Values, 2004, vol. 21, issue 1, 27-35

Abstract: Many mechanisms now exist forconsumers to express progressive values inpurchasing decisions. Although demand for suchgoods has grown, these goods remain the purviewof small niche markets. Focusing on the marketfor agricultural goods (and the choice betweenthe paradigms of industrialized versussustainable agriculture), this paper discussesthree major reasons (market failures, entrybarriers, and biased policies) why it isdifficult for consumers to express their valuesfor a more sustainable system in this way, andwhy policy change is needed to create a fairerplaying field. The current policy, voluntarylabeling, is inadequate. A new set of policies,including taxes and subsidies to correct marketfailures, is needed to create opportunities forconsumers to support values such as health,community, and stewardship. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2004

Keywords: Consumer values; Market failures; Markets; Organic label; Policy; Sustainable agriculture (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1023/B:AHUM.0000014024.02315.1b (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:spr:agrhuv:v:21:y:2004:i:1:p:27-35

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10460

DOI: 10.1023/B:AHUM.0000014024.02315.1b

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture and Human Values is currently edited by Harvey S. James Jr.

More articles in Agriculture and Human Values from Springer, The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().