The future of sustainable food consumption in China

Food production is one of the main contributors to climate change. This paper investigated factors influencing Chinese consumers ’ purchase intentions for sustainable food baskets using extensive survey data. The research tested whether public education through information provision effectively achieves sustainable diet transition in China. AbstractFood production is one of the main contributors to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. China, as a rapidly developing economy, contributes to an unsustainable food system as its consumption of animal products and meat has continued to grow in recent decades. Using the extended theory of planned behavior as the conceptual framework, this paper examines factors influencing consumers' intention to purchase sustainable food in China. To this end, a population-based face-to-face survey was conducted with 2422 respondents in five provinces spanning the north and south of China. The results showed that the traditional constructs of behavioral attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and the additional construct of perceived quality are significant in inducing such intentions. This paper suggests that to enhance consumers' willingness to shift to sustainable food consumption, appropriate regulation and monitoring framework is needed to increase consumers' trust toward sustainable food. The government can also cooperate with the media, experts, and social media opinion leaders to ensure that messages on sustainab...
Source: Food and Energy Security - Category: Food Science Authors: Tags: ORIGINAL ARTICLE Source Type: research