The Effect of Greenhouse Pollination Methods on Consumers’ Willingness to Pay for Tomatoes in Japan

Takeshi Nishimura

doi:10.1017/aae.2020.33

Abstract

AbstractSince 2017, the Japanese government has been phasing out the use of non-native bumblebees as greenhouse tomato pollinators due to their ecological risks. We used an online questionnaire to investigate whether pollination methods affect consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for tomatoes. We found that consumers valued the use of non-native bumblebees more than hormonal treatment and native more than non-native bees. Moreover, we found that informing consumers of the ecological risks increased WTP for native bumblebees and hormonal treatment. These results suggest that pollination method labeling may help protect ecosystems from the threat of non-native species.

Highlights

In greenhouse tomato production, employing bumblebees as pollinators has become common practice worldwide
In the willingness to pay (WTP) for hormone-treated tomatoes compared to the use of non-native bumblebees as pollinators, respondents with only Information on Ecological Risk and with Information on Both had smaller negative values than those without any information or those with only Information on Quality Improvement. These results indicate that providing consumers with information about the ecological risks posed by non-native bumblebees may reduce their disfavor of hormone-treated tomatoes, perhaps because once they learn about the ecological risks, respondents may believe hormonal treatment is better than using non-native species
This study found that consumers preferred tomatoes pollinated by non-native bumblebees over those cultivated using hormone treatments, even if they were not informed of the tomato quality-enhancing effects of bumblebees

Summary

Introduction

In greenhouse tomato production, employing bumblebees as pollinators has become common practice worldwide. The introduction of bumblebees has freed tomato growers from labor-intensive pollination and enabled them to increase the sizes of their greenhouses (Nishimura, 2010; Velthuis and Doorn, 2006). In addition to reducing labor for tomato growers, bumblebee pollination has more positive effects on tomato yields, size, weight, and seed counts than the honeybee and traditional vibration approaches to pollination used in England (Banda and Paxton, 1991). These positive effects were observed in other countries, demonstrating that bumblebees are more efficient than vibration and plant growth regulators in greenhouse tomato production (Daşgan et al, 2004). The jelly inside the tomato fruit is enriched, the overall shape improves, the cavities decrease, the sugar content rises, and the vitamin C content increases (Gosterit and Gurel, 2018; Matsuura, 1993; Mitsuhata, 2018; Velthuis and Doorn, 2006)

Methods

Results

Conclusion