Farmers' adoption willingness of food traceability system: An empirical analysis of the Chinese apple industry

Using 263 apple farmer households in Fengxian County in southeast China as an example, this paper conducts an empirical study on farmers' adoption willingness of food traceability system and its main determinants on the base of penalized likelihood estimation. As the result shows, 38% of the investigated farmers are willing to adopt the food traceability system and the adoption is strongly influenced by determinants including the apple farmers' age and degree, household income contributed by apple planting, operated apple farmland size, information records keeping, awareness, expected price and preferential policy. Based on this conclusion, this paper gives advises on how to stimulate the adoption of food traceability system so as to promote the construction of China's food traceability system and provide a useful reference for other developing countries.