Changing structure of China’s meat imports

This paper discusses the determinants of meat imports of China. Results indicate that import demand is mostly determined by import price and real GDP. Imported price has a negative effect and real GDP ...     

Eating Outside the Box: FoodShare’s Good Food Box and the Challenge of Scale

The concept of scale is useful in analyzing both the strengths and limitations of community food security programs that attempt to link issues of ecological sustainability with social justice. One scalar issue that is particularly important but under-theorized is the scale of social reproduction, which is often neglected in production-focused studies of globalization. FoodShare Toronto's good food box (GFB) program, engages people in the politics of their everyday lives, empowering them to make connections between consumption patterns and broader political-economic, cultural, and political-ecological issues. Community food security (CFS) projects such as the GFB are currently limited in their scope and reach and have been criticized for their inability to deliver food to a larger segment of marginalized, hungry people. A central dilemma for CFS projects is how to engage the majority of urban consumers who still eat “inside the box” of the industrial food system. We argue that the concept of scale helps clarify how CFS projects must “scale out” to other localities, as well as “scale up” to address structural concerns like state capacity, industrial agriculture, and unequal distribution of wealth. This requires the state and the third sector to recognize the importance of multi-scaled food politics as well as a long-term pedagogical project promoting ecological sustainability, social responsibility, and the pleasures of eating locally. Josée Johnston is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto. She is interested in the radical potential of food politics in the context of neo-liberal globalism. Lauren Baker is a doctoral candidate in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University in Toronto, Canada. Her research interests include food politics, alternative food networks, and place-based social movements. Lauren worked with FoodShare Toronto as a program coordinator for five years and continues to be active in the community food security movement.     

China’s meat and grain imports during 2000-2012 and beyond:A comparative perspective

This paper provides a review on China’s meat trade for the 2000–2012 period and discusses its future development, with reference to China’s grain trade. With marginal decreases in meat exports and slig...     

Consumers’ experiences and preferences for plant-based meat food: Evidence from a choice experiment in four cities of China

This paper examined consumers’ experiences in and preferences for plant-based meat (PBM) food and their respective correlates, based on data from an online survey of 579 consumers in four major cities in China in early 2021. We first described consumers’ experiences in consuming and purchasing PBM food and their correlates, and then analyzed consumer preferences using hypothetical choice experiment. The experiment offered consumers various options to purchase burgers made from PBM or animal-based meat (ABM), combined with different countries of origin (COO), taste labels, and prices. Our data showed that respondents hold overall positive attitudes toward PBM food; 85 and 82% of respondents reported experience in eating and purchasing PBM food, respectively. More than half of them ate PBM food because they wanted to try new food (58%), or were interested in healthy food (56%). Income, religion, and dietary restrictions were significantly correlated with consumers’ experiences in PBM food consumption. Results from the Random Parameter Logit Model based on the hypothetical choice experiment data showed that 79% of respondents chose PBM burgers and were willing to pay an average of 88 CNY for a PBM burger. We also found that 99.8 and 83% of respondents are willing to buy burgers made in China and those with a taste label, with a willingness to pay (WTP) of 208 and 120 CNY, respectively. The heterogeneity test revealed that females and those with at least a bachelor’s degree, higher income, religious beliefs, and dietary restrictions are more likely to buy PBM burgers than their counterparts.     

Consumer’s stated trust in the food industry and meat purchases

Research indicates that consumers are particularly concerned about the safety of meat. More highly processed meat is perceived as more unsafe than fresh or natural meats, i.e., consumers trust processed meat less. This paper studies the relationship between perceived trust and day-to-day purchase behavior for meat, giving special attention to the degree of meat processing. Controlling for trust in food chain actors and demographic and socio-economic variables, actual meat purchases of Canadian households are linked to answers from a commissioned food attitudes survey completed by the same households. Expenditures for processed and total meat (but not for fresh meat) are significantly different by three levels of trust in the food industry. Consumer with the lowest trust levels consume less (especially of processed meat) compared to those with higher trust levels. However, in a multivariate setting, trust shows no effect on fresh or processed meat purchases with or without demographic and socio-economic control variables, suggesting that the impact of trust on meat purchases is only small. However, the low trusting consumer segment could potentially be a target for marketing strategies focused on reputation and quality to increase sales in this particular group.     

The logic of the gift: the possibilities and limitations of Carlo Petrini’s slow food alternative

The majority of literature on Slow Food focuses on the organization or actors involved in the movement. There is a dearth of material analyzing Carlo Petrini’s aspirations for Slow Food, particularly in light of his desire within Slow Food Nation (2007) and Terra Madre (2010) to make “freewill giving a part of economic discourse.” This essay corrects the literature gap through historicizing and critiquing Petrini’s alternative to global capitalism while rooting it in actually existing practices. First, Petrini’s problematic conceptualization of freewill giving will be compared to feminist theorizations and documentations of the gift economy. Second, Petrini’s avoidance of the toxic mimic of the gift, its subsumption to capitalism, will be amended by discussing how the gifting of food aid and emergency food networks actually reproduces inequality, poverty, and hunger. Third, Petrini’s example of gifting by a Trappist Monastery will be juxtaposed to the ongoing direct action strategies of Food Not Bombs, a much stronger example of an oppositional gift economy, one that is subsequently repressed by the state. In doing so, this essay seeks to expand discussion of the gift economy within the alternative food movement while amending many of the theoretical, historical, and political problems embedded within Petrini’s work, which performs a strong disservice to the politics of possibility embedded within gifting.     

Welfare and Market Impacts of Food Safety Measures in China：Results from Urban Consumers’ Valuation of Product Attributes

This study provides an economics assessment of various food safety measures in China. A choice experiment approach is used to elicit Chinese consumer preferences for various food safety attributes using data from a 2008 urban consumer survey. An alternative welfare calculation is used to model aggregate market impacts of select food safety measures. Our results show that the largest welfare gains are found in the current government-run certiifcation program. The implementation of a third-party certiifcation system, a traceability network and a product label would generate signiifcant value and would help reduce current system inefifciencies in China. This study builds on previous research and provides an alternative approach for calculating consumer valuation of safety and quality attributes that can be used to estimate aggregate economic and welfare impacts.     

Anti-inflammation Activities of Essential Oil and Anti-microbial Activities Of Ethanol Extraction from China’s Rosemary

Rosemary (Rosmarius officinalis L.), an endemic plant species in south region of China, is traditional y used as a spice. In this research, the anti-inflamma-tory activities of essential oil and the an...     

Inspiration from Food Production in the Past 26 Years in China

通过对中国1978-2003年粮食生产发展历程和特点的回顾、分析,说明中国已经具备667m2产出300kg、总产5亿t的粮食生产能力,中国人对粮食丰欠和粮价波动的承受力大为增强,但是粮食生产进一步取得新突破的难度增加,粮食生产效益下降的趋势不可忽视。同时,提出了以科学发展观为指导,建立粮食生产长效机制的四条对策,即以年人均380kg作为中国粮食生产的安全线,立法保护足量、优质的耕地,逐步扩大粮食生产规模以提高粮食生产效益,粮食生产者要自强自立争取平等的市场经济地位。     

Fishers weigh in: benefits and risks of eating Great Lakes fish from the consumer’s perspective

Three decades of concern over consumption of potentially contaminated Great Lakes fish has led government agencies and public health proponents to implement risk assessment and management programs as a means of protecting the health of fishers and their families. While well-meaning in their intent, these programs––and much of the research conducted to support and evaluate them––were not designed to accommodate the understandings and concerns of the fish consumer. Results from a qualitative component of a multi-disciplinary, multi-year research project on frequent (average 108 meals per year) consumers of Great Lakes fish tell the fishers’ side of the story. We present data from 87 tape recorded interviews conducted with Vietnamese, Chinese, and English-speaking participants that underscore the quality of freshly caught Great Lakes fish and the important social and cultural benefits of fish and fishing to the consumer. We also outline the participants’ understandings of risk from eating Great Lakes fish and the way in which fishers and their families manage this risk. The paper concludes with a discussion of these benefits, risks, and risk management strategies as ways that Great Lakes fish consumers “construct” rather than “perceive” risk. We advocate for risk assessment and management protocols that involve those who will be affected the most, such as frequent consumers of Great Lakes fish, from the initial “risk characterization” stage through to any necessary risk communication.

Overview of Impacts of Climate Change and Adaptation in China’s Agriculture

The purpose of this paper is to document the likely impacts of climate change on China＇s agriculture and the current adaptation efforts made by government and farmers. The review of literature shows that climate change will have a significant impact on agriculture, primarily through its effect on crop yields. The extent of predicted impacts highly depends on the crop, the CO2 fertilization effect assumption and adaptation abilities. Market response to the production shocks resulting from climate change will lessen the impacts on agricultural production predicted by natural scientists. On adaptation, the government＇s major efforts have been in the developing new technologies, reforming extension system and enhancing institutional capacity. Farmers do adapt to climate change, but their adaptation measures cannot fully offset the negative impacts of climate change. The paper concludes and makes implications for future studies.     

Development and Validation of the Reclamation Chisel-Fertilizer’s Design

A mechanism and operation principle of the original structure of the reclamation chisel-fertilizer is presented. The advantage of the design consists in the possibility of the uniform supply of the fertilizers and ameliorants to the plowing and subsurface soil layers, which ensures an increase of the fertile layer, improvement of the nutrition conditions of the plants, and, as consequence, an increase of the yield of the cultivated crops. The pressure supply of the ameliorants to the layer is carried out by a high-pressure fan with a pressure air duct, fertilizer tube, by which the fertilizer-air mixture is supplied under the A-blade. The ameliorants are supplied to the trapezoidal deformation zone of the subsurface soil layer created by the chisel working element below the furrow bottom. The calculation of the structural elements of the mechanism is given. The developed structure also allows for combining the operations on applying the ameliorants, which increase the complex criterion of energy efficiency to 15%. The use of the developed structure in the agricultural production allows keeping and restoring the soil fertility.     

What is artiifcial meat and what does it mean for the future of the meat industry?

The meat industry cannot respond to increases in demand by ever increasing resource use. The industry must ifnd solutions to issues regarding animal welfare, health and sustainability and wil have to d...     

Driving factors of direct greenhouse gas emissions from China’s pig industry from 1976 to 2016

Livestock cultivation is a significant source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, accounting for 14.5% of the total anthropogenic emissions. China is responsible for a considerable share of the global livestock emissions, particularly caused by pork production. We used the Kaya identity and the logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) to decompose the national annual GHG emissions from enteric fermentation and manure management in pig farming in China from 1976 to 2016. We decomposed the sources of the emissions into five driving factors: (1) technological progress (e.g., feed improvement); (2) structural adjustment in the livestock sector; (3) structural adjustment in agriculture; (4) affluence; and (5) population growth. The results showed that the net GHG emissions from the pig sector in China increased 16 million tons (Mt) of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO₂eq) during the study period. The decomposition analysis revealed that structural adjustment in agriculture, growing affluence, and population growth contributed to an increase of the GHG emissions of pork production by 23, 41, and 13 Mt CO₂eq, respectively. The technological progress and structural changes in animal husbandry mitigated emissions by –51 and –11 Mt CO₂eq, respectively. Further technological progress in pig production and optimizing the economic structures are critical for further reducing GHG emissions in China’s pig industry. Our results highlight the dominant role of technological changes for emission reductions in the pig farming.     

What is artificial meat and what does it mean for the future of the meat industry?

The meat industry cannot respond to increases in demand by ever increasing resource use. The industry must find solutions to issues regarding animal welfare, health and sustainability and will have to do so in the face of competition from emerging non-traditional meat and protein products in an increasingly complex regulatory environment. These novel meat and protein products, otherwise known as ‘artificial meat' are utilising ground breaking technologies designed to meet the issues facing the conventional meat industry. These artificial meats, in vitro or cultured meat and meat from genetically modified organisms have no real capacity to compete with conventional meat production in the present environment. However, meat replacements manufactured from plant proteins and mycoproteins are currently the biggest competitors and are gaining a small percentage of the market. Manufactured meats may push conventional meat into the premium end of the market, and supply the bulk, cheap end of the market if conventional meat products become more expensive and the palatability and versatility of manufactured meats improve. In time the technology for other artificial meats such as meat from genetic modified organisms or cultured meat may become sufficiently developed for these products to enter the market with no complexity of the competition between meat products. Conventional meat producers can assimilate agroecology ecology concepts in order to develop sustainable animal production systems. The conventional meat industry can also benefit from assimilating biotechnologies such as cloning and genetic modification technologies, using the technology to adapt to the changing environment and respond to the increasing competition from artificial meats. Although it will depend at least partly on the evolution of conventional meat production, the future of artificial meat produced from stem cells appears uncertain at this time.     

The problem with the farmer’s voice

In this essay we present three biases that make it difficult to represent farmer voices in a meaningful way. These biases are information bias, individual bias, and short-term bias. We illustrate these biases through two case studies. One is the case of Golden Rice in the Philippines and the other is the case of Bt cotton in India.     

On the current status of China＇s national reading and Development Strategy

根据对全民阅读活动的专题数据检索调研,分析了中国全民阅读活动的研究成果,探讨持续、健康发展全民阅读活动的基本策略。