Rewarding responsible innovation when consumers are distant from producers: Evidence from New Zealand

Abstract

Recognising that increased intensification of agri-food production is pushing up against environmental constraints, a New Zealand national science challenge aims to enhance primary sector productivity while improving land and water quality for future generations. This might be conceptualised as ‘responsible innovation’, but as Blok et al. (2015) and Blok and Lemmens (2015) have pointed out, there are several practical issues undermining the adoption of a responsible innovation approach. This is made particularly difficult when local production is exported to distant consumers. In this context this paper reports on a study of consumers in five export markets for New Zealand agri-food products (China, India, Indonesia, Japan and the United Kingdom), exploring the importance of product credence attributes and sub-attributes in these markets and how capturing price premiums for these attributes can provide increased returns to reward responsible innovation.