| Agri-food safety and quality traceability is an important tool,which allow for information inquiry,responsibility traceability to assure safety and quality of agri-food by means of the collection and transmission of information relating to all processes in the supply chain of Agri-food.It is also an inevitable approach to increasing the value of agricultural products while co-regulating of Agri-food safety and quality.At present,it is the foundation of China's agricultural development to ascertain both safety and quality of agri-food.The problems of safety and quality of agri-food does not only directly threaten the life and health of the public,but also affects agricultural industry development,which has attracted the government's great attention.The No.1 document of the CPC Central Committee in 2019 states that the focus of agriculture development will shift from increasing production to improving quality","we will implement the project to assure safety and quality of agri-food,and improve the supervision system,monitoring system and traceability system.The No.1 document in 2020 put forward,to ensure safety on the tip of people's mouth,we should strengthen supervision on the whole supply process of agri-food,establish and improve the traceability system.According to signaling theory,agri-food traceability enables provision of information and traceability of liability to solve food safety problems.These functions can reduce the government regulatory cost,solve the dilemma of government supervision,and serve as the basis for co-regulation by reducing consumers' information asymmetry,and improve the violation detection probability.At the same time,with the increase of quality differences among different agri-food,the quality and safety information has become an important source to meet the diverse and differentiated needs of consumers and realize the value increase of agri-food.While the agri-food traceability system is vigorously promoted,the current market demand for agri-food is insufficient,and the market value is not realized.For consumers,whether the information function and traceability function are valuable is an issue to be solved.The first question is why transparent information is not used by consumers to quality verification and cannot bring utility to consumers,which type of information consumers prefer and whether their preferences are homogeneous.The second question is why consumers are reluctant to facilitate information on agri-food attributes,and claim for compensation in the event of a food safety problem.The following problems of the existing researches further motivated this dissertation.The controversy arises from disputed value of information of traceable agri-food,and systematic analysis of consumers' willingness to use information and seek legal redress is limited,as well as the study on issues relating to other traceable agri-foods.Therefore,in terms of apples that have an important impact on social economy,systematical study on issues existing in information and traceability function from the perspective of consumers will contribute to the research and implementation of agri-food safety and quality traceability.While analyzing existing problems of agri-food safety and quality traceability system in China,this study explores the influence of consumers' characteristics and agri-food's characteristics on the perceived value and premium value of safety and quality information of traceable agri-food,and consumers' traceback behavior,as well as provide possible directions for the development of agri-food traceability system and the establishment of trust mechanism.Three main parts are included in this dissertation as follows,first of all,analyze the characteristics and requirements of the agri-food traceability framework in China,then clarify the status quo and the areas of weakness in Chinese developing programs of agri-food safety and quality traceability system,from these traceability framework and system,and analyze the status and existing problems of apple quality and safety traceability in China,to obtain an understanding of the information function and traceability function at the macro level.Secondly,a conceptual framework of perceived value of information is developed,which describes the impact of cognitive level and trust degree on the perceived value of information of traceable agri-food,and examined on empirical data from a survey performed in six cities,Beijing,Shanghai,Guangzhou,Xi'an,Jinan and Harbin.Furthermore,a model dealing with heterogeneity in the information choice is developed,and examined using latent class method on 2092 consumer data from a choice experiment to test whether perceived value of information is the source of consumer heterogeneous preference and WTP estimation of latent segments for information.In the end,according to the theory of consumer behavior,the analysis assesses the influence on consumers' traceback behavior of using information and seeking legal redress based on the survey data drawn from consumers in six cities,as well as the influence of trace on WTP for traceable information.Three main conclusions can be drawn from this study.First,following scientific systematicness,compatibility,reliability,openness and convenience,agri-food traceability frame in China can provide information inquiry,information management and information services,to prevent risks,guarantee agri-food safety and achieve valueadded quality.There are some issues of agri-food safety and quality traceability on various aspects,especially the inadequate legal system and management system.Hence authenticity and accuracy of information become difficult to guarantee,and ambiguity about who is the party at faulty,hinder domestic traceability system from dealing effectively with agri-food safety and quality issues.A number of systems and platforms have been built for Apple quality and safety traceability,but there are still problems such as incomplete coverage of participants in the traceability system,lack of completeness,accuracy and timeliness of traceability information,inconsistent traceability standards,and unbalanced development of cross-regional traceability platform construction.Second,consumers' cognition level of traceable agri-food and information trust level are generally low,which is the main reason for the low perceived value of information of traceable agri-food.It further explains that consumers who have no confidence in the use of information are more likely to be sensitive to price and have a low willingness to pay for information,while consumers who suspect the information function of verifying the safety and quality of agri-food will not buy traceable agri-food with combined information attributes.Third,consumers' generally low recognition of government regulation weakens consumers' probability to identify information of the party at fault and to claim for compensation for agri-food safety and quality problems.Low probability to trace back also limits consumers' willingness to pay for information.According to our conclusions,the following policy suggestions are proposed.First,to guatantee availability of traceable agricultural products,build the agri-food traceability legal system,enacting traceability and its regulation.It includes basic laws,specific articles and requirements for different kinds of agri-food and different parts of supply chain.Second,improve information and traceability management system.Ensure the accuracy of collection,documentation,maintenance and application of information relating to all process,and improve traceability efficiency through all stages of supply chain,with advanced information technology.Third,to realize the effectiveness of the traceability policy,market access or value added means should be choosed as target of traceability,and corresponding institutional measures should be adopted,according to the degree of quality and safety risk of agricultural products and the implementation stage of traceability.Fourth,to play the traceability efficiency,establish operation mechanisms,including information sharing mechanism,regulations integration mechanism for agri-food safety and quality,and subject trust mechanism.Through the public medium,and developed public access to records of every levels of supply chain,strengthen the communication among producers,operators,regulators and consumers,especially among consumers with different ability to identify information.It is helpful to solve the complexity of safety and quality information,improve the efficiency of consumer feedback,and enhance consumers' trust level of information and regulatory authorities.Agri-food safety and quality regulation is a systematic programme relating to every part in the supply chain.Therefore,to enhance traceability system requires advancement of itself,as well as integration of other regulations for agri-food safety and quality.Integrate agri-food certification into the traceability system,because the third-party certification can improve the accuracy and reliability of information,and the promotion and implementation of the traceability system can be facilitated by established certification system.Establish agri-food supplier credit system and integrate the credit information into traceability system.The degree of supplier credit information can not only reduce information cost for consumers arising from quality verification,but also can develop consumers' trust.Moreover,the credit system enables rapid identification of opportunism behavior to strengthen traceability system's deterrent effect.In the end,in order to allow for information inquiry,responsibility traceability to assure safety and quality of agri-food,mechanism of competence trust and reputation trust should be established. |
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