Consumers’ Willingness to Pay for Locally Grown Produce: Comparison of New Hampshire and Massachusetts Results

The increasing interest in locally grown produce in the U.S. has resulted in a number of studies examining consumers’ willingness to pay for local specialty food. This paper extends the literature to investigate Massachusetts and New Hampshire survey respondents’ preferences for locally grown and other attributes of a variety of produce types. Choice experiments are used to discern the relative importance of these produce attributes. Our results show that the average premiums for locally grown green beans, cucumbers and snap peas are respectively 30.74 percent, 67.30 percent, and 32.62 percent above the prices of the non-locally grown counterparts among New Hampshire respondents. In comparison, the average premiums for locally grown green beans, cucumbers and snap peas are respectively 57.66 percent, 17.31 percent (insignificant), and 35.45 percent above the prices of the non-locally grown counterparts among Massachusetts respondents. We also find mixed results on the willingness to pay for the organic feature across different produce. Consumers are willing to pay a price premium for organically grown green beans (about 29.02 percent in New Hampshire and 32.63 percent in Massachusetts), but none for snap peas.