Public Preferences for Multifunctionality of Agriculture: National Survey of Registered Voters

Wanki Moon, Todd Kuethe (), Steven E. Kraft and J. Dixon Esseks

No 19430, 2005 Annual meeting, July 24-27, Providence, RI from American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association)

Abstract: Our study used AFT survey data to analyze the preferences of registered voters with regard to the non-market (mulitifunctional) benefits that agriculture produces jointly with market commodities. Descriptive data analysis demonstrates that the US public considers the multifunctionality of agriculture as an important social issue. Regression models show that geographic regions can be very important in determining people's behavior with respect to the multifunctional benefits of agriculture. Voters living in Central Plains, Mountain, or West were generally less appreciative of the multifunctional benefits of agriculture when compared to those in Northeast region. However, if our study restricts the analysis to those who supported the multifunctionality concept, we have a dramatically different result: i.e., voters in the agriculturally abundant regions are likely to pay a significantly higher amount of additional taxes to support farmers for their supply of various multifunctional benefits to our society. This result suggests that it is important to take into account geographic regions when valuing the multifunctionality of agriculture and that the public's preferences can be quite heterogeneous within a particular geographic region.

Keywords: Institutional; and; Behavioral; Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26
Date: 2005
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aaea05:19430

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.19430

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