Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING
1000 E UNIVERSITY AVE DEPARTMENT 3434
LARAMIE,WY 82071-2000
Performing Department
Agricultural And Applied Economics
Non Technical Summary
Rising income and population growth in the second half of the 20th century are considered two of the most significant factors contributing to the growth of global food consumption. New evidence also indicates the importance of demographic changes (e.g., rapid urbanization in China), political changes (e.g., the break-up of the Soviet Union), and increasing health concerns (e.g., potential health risks related to dairy and red meat consumption) in shaping consumer food preferences and food consumption dynamics. For example, urbanization in China has been on a steady rise recently, which has contributed to changing consumer food preferences and consumption patterns. This carries significant implications for food security in China and the global food trade, including trade flows with the United States, given the role China plays on global food markets. The major objective of this research project--which will be carried out at UW by Assistant Professor Vardges Hovhannisyan and his graduate research assistants-is to investigate the effects of the above phenomena on food demand structure and consumption dynamics (including subsistence consumption) in the U.S., China, and Russia. This will be done through the development of analytical frameworks that incorporate demographic, health, and other important factors into a consumer demand model for a variety of food commodities. The project will also consider the supply-side effects of these changes such as the urbanization-induced loss of agricultural land, increased pollution and deteriorating soil quality on food supply. Modeling these demand and supply components simultaneously will allow us to account for the major forces determining food prices more accurately. The distinct advantages of our enhanced analytical framework create potential for a wide range of empirical applications such as examining consumer response to changing food structures brought about by various economic and social reforms, as well as major structural changes such as rising urbanization. This makes the current approach useful for researchers and policy makers in a range of disciplines including agricultural economics, international development, health and nutrition, and trade.
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
Major Goal: Investigate effects demographic, political, and health concerns on food demand in the US, China, and Russia.Objectives:1.The major objective of the current study is to investigate the effects of various demographic, political, and health concerns on food demand in the US, China, and Russia by addressing the fundamental issues not examined in previous studies.2. To empirically examine these effects on food demand and consumer preferences by applying our framework to the most recent provincial-level panel data on consumer food expenditures provided by the respective state statistics bureaus.3. To construct anempirical framework that will recognize potential food supply and price responses to increased urbanization and other important changes resulting from the loss of agricultural land, increased water scarcity, and deteriorating soil quality.4. To investigate the effects of the above changes on subsistence consumption.
Project Methods
To address our objectives, we will modify an existing demand model to incorporate the effects of urbanization, health concerns, and structural preference changes on food demand and prices. In addition, we will model potential supply-side effects such as loss of agricultural land, increased water scarcity, and deteriorating soil quality on food supply and prices. This approach corrects for certain regression issues that could result in inaccurate empirical findings thus leading to unintended policy conclusions.Our study will use a provincial-level panel dataset collected by the NBSC, which contains household food expenditure surveys over the period 2005-2012. The data include unit prices and annual average household expenditures for seven widely consumed food commodity aggregates across 30 provinces/administrative divisions/cities, and consumer demographics. The seven food commodity aggregates include meats, seafood, vegetables, fruit, grains, eggs, and fats/oils. Further, we will supplement the household food expenditure panel information with annual data on land area under urban construction across provinces and time; chemical oxygen demand emission in water; amount of groundwater used as a proxy for water scarcity; agricultural land affected by flood, drought, wind and hail; and number of major productive fixed assets per 100 rural households. This latter set of variables account for the supply-side effects on food prices, and offer a promise of more precise estimation of consumer response to changes in their socio-economic environment.The analysis of food demand in Russia will be based on the most recent household food expenditures panel data provided by the Federal State Statistics Service (FSSS) of the Russian Federation. The data provide detailed information on consumption patterns for representative households from across the 79 provincial-level administrative divisions of Russia (such as oblasts, autonomous republics, etc.) over an eight-year period from 2007 to 2014. The data are collected by the FSSS through annual surveys of representative households as part of the Household Income and Food Expenditure Survey.