Rural Bangladeshi consumers’ (un)willingness to pay for low-milled rice: Implications for zinc biofortification

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dc.creatorHerrington, Caitlin L.
dc.creatorMaredia, Mywish K.
dc.creatorOrtega, David L.
dc.creatorTaleon, Victor
dc.creatorBirol, Ekin
dc.creatorSarkar, Md Abdur Rouf
dc.creatorRahaman, Md Shajedur
dc.date2023-01
dc.date2023-01-22T18:18:54Z
dc.date2023-01-22T18:18:54Z
dc.date.accessioned2026-06-27T15:27:11Z
dc.descriptionZinc deficiency is a severe public health problem in Bangladesh. We examine the effects of nutritional information on rural consumers’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) for two ways to increase zinc intake through rice, the main staple crop–low-milling that gives rice grains a distinctive light brown color (a visible trait) and sets it apart from the culturally preferred high-milled white rice grain and biofortification of rice with increased zinc content (an invisible trait), which is also low-milled to retain maximum zinc content. Results of our economic experiments suggest that with nutritional information, consumers are willing to pay a premium of 4.6% for zinc biofortified rice compared to non-biofortified rice, when milled at the same level. However, results confirm the strong preference for high-milled rice by Bangladeshi consumers who discounted low-milled rice by 8%–10% even after receiving information on the nutritional benefits of biofortified or low-milled rice. We find that consumers’ WTP for the two high-zinc-low-milled rice types (biofortified and non-biofortified) is positively correlated with being a female, more educated, belonging to households engaged in non-farm activities and with children under 5 years of age. Results point to the importance of nutritional awareness campaigns for increasing zinc biofortified and low-milled rice consumption and guiding the targeting strategy for such campaigns. Given the consumer preference for high-milled rice, this study also points to the need for exploring the rice fortification strategy to address the challenge of malnutrition.
dc.identifierhttps://hdl.handle.net/10568/127776
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/123456789/104817
dc.languageen
dc.publisherWiley
dc.relationhttps://doi.org/10.1002/jsfa.11379
dc.rightsOpen Access
dc.sourceHerrington, Caitlin L.; Maredia, Mywish K.; Ortega, David L.; Taleon, Victor; Birol, Ekin; Sarkar, Md Abdur Rouf; and Rahaman, Md Shajedur. 2022. Rural Bangladeshi consumers’ (un)willingness to pay for low-milled rice: Implications for zinc biofortification. Agricultural Economics 54(1) 5-22. https://doi.org/10.1111/agec.12739
dc.subjectbiofortification
dc.subjectconsumer behaviour
dc.subjecttrace element deficiencies
dc.subjectmilling
dc.subjectrice
dc.subjectwillingness to pay
dc.subjectzinc
dc.titleRural Bangladeshi consumers’ (un)willingness to pay for low-milled rice: Implications for zinc biofortification
dc.typeJournal Article

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Instituto Internacional de Investigación sobre Políticas Alimentarias (IFPRI)