Do Chinese University Students Consider Animal Welfare When Buying Milk?
As one of the world’s biggest economies, China is changing rapidly, both within industry and culture. This fact makes it crucial to consider for animal advocates. While farming is intensifying across Asia, China’s youth are also becoming more aware and interested in animal welfare.
This study, focused in Guangzhou’s agricultural university, investigates what students consider when buying dairy milk and their attitudes towards animal welfare. Understanding the attitudes and behaviors of students can give insight into changing societal values and the direction of future markets. In turn, animal advocates can use this insight to better target campaign efforts across China.
Study participants completed a survey, involving three important components.
- Discrete choice experiment: Firstly, a discrete choice experiment (DCE) asked participants to choose between different milk products. Each product was described using five attributes: the price of the milk, its protein content, shelf life, origin, and lastly, whether it was labelled organic or high-welfare. By presenting products with different combinations of attributes, researchers could analyze what consumers value most when buying milk.
- Willingness to buy: Secondly, participants were directly asked to rate how likely they would be to buy milk with an animal welfare label. A market survey by the researchers revealed that these labels were in reality quite scarce, and so the study in part sought to understand what effect they might have if used. However, while the DCE compared how animal welfare labels were valued in comparison to other product attributes, this section of the survey revealed how a welfare label affects a customer’s chances of actually buying the milk.
- Perceptions of welfare: Thirdly, students were asked to rate statements about animal welfare and milk consumption. These statements captured a variety of value judgements, from the importance of farmed animal welfare to its weight against human welfare to the perceived quality of high-welfare milk.
Based on their responses, the researchers could establish the students’ main motivations when buying milk: participants could be primarily driven by product quality (be that taste, safety, or healthiness) or by emotions (driven by the feelings and welfare of animals). Individuals might still have multiple, competing motivations. For example, 49% of respondents were quality-emotion balanced. But by considering how primary motivations affect behavior, researchers can understand how to better target higher-welfare products.
What Milk Qualities Matter Most?
The DCE showed that the milk attribute most important to the students was the presence of an “organic” label, closely followed by an “animal welfare” label. Other attributes were less influential. These preferences were consistent across academic disciplines, suggesting more unified agreement on the importance of animal welfare.
Digging deeper, the DCE also suggests how much more students might be willing to pay for welfare-labelled milk. Overall, participants agreed to pay the equivalent of 48 cents more for higher-welfare milk. This premium was highest for the quality-motivated group (56 cents), followed by those who were more emotionally driven (52 cents).
Nearly half of the cohort was balanced between quality and emotional motivations in their perceptions of milk. Interestingly, this group was least likely to pay more for a high-welfare label, possibly because they were influenced by a wider range of product attributes: the balanced group also had the largest range of values when it came to willingness to pay.
Who’s The Most Willing To Buy Higher-Welfare Milk?
Despite these DCE findings, participants stated a different willingness to actually buy higher-welfare milk. Overall, the emotionally motivated group most strongly exhibited a preference to buy milk with an animal welfare label. Apart from rural dwellers in this group, this finding was generally true across the board.
Interestingly, quality-motivated participants were less willing to actually buy higher-welfare milk, despite the fact that they were willing to pay more for it, according to the results of the DCE. This discrepancy is surprising and may require more research. Perceptions and consumption of animal products is complex, particularly across China’s broad and diverse culture.
Implications
What does this mean for advocates? Firstly, pro-welfare campaigns within universities should target emotionally intuitive consumers, as the study showed a strong preference for higher-welfare milk within this group. Considering that welfare labels remain scarce, there’s reason to believe more could be done to promote higher-welfare options to those who are already interested in the cause.
Secondly, campaigns should broaden education of animal welfare issues within universities. This might occur through societies, public events, and taught material. Growing animal advocacy within universities will have downstream impacts within other important institutions.
Finally, advocates should pursue cultural change across markets and society more broadly. Industry, policy, and law should be shaped to value animal welfare and environmental health, not just revenue from animal agriculture. Given China’s role on the world stage, research and work there could provide valuable lessons to animal advocates in many other contexts.
https://doi.org/10.3390/foods12214044