Date of Award
8-2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
<-- Please Select One -->
Department
Agricultural and Applied Economics
Committee Chair/Advisor
Alba Collart
Committee Member
Dawoon Jeong
Committee Member
Raghupathy Karthikeyan
Abstract
Freshwater scarcity is an issue that continues to grow in importance to the agriculture industry. Growing populations need food, and farmers continue to expand freshwater irrigation to accommodate the need for larger crop yields. However, increasing frequency and severity of droughts and overall climatological conditions across the United States coupled with this pressure on freshwater sources breeds concern for the future sustainability of water use. As a result, the implementation of non-conventional water sources and alternative production technologies like controlled environment agriculture (CEA) that are more water efficient have been suggested as ways to manage and alleviate this pressure. An important barrier to consider, though, is consumer acceptance.
Consumers may experience negative attitudes towards alternative water or agricultural technologies with which they are unfamiliar, known as stigma or colloquially as a “yuck” factor. Such stigma can be mitigated using mechanisms such as information and processing. This study implements these stigma mitigation mechanisms and assesses their influence on consumers’ behavior toward these technologies. Using stated preference methods, we investigate consumer marginal willingness to pay for different water sources – treated municipal wastewater, treated urban stormwater, and partially desalinated brackish water – and agricultural production technologies. Results show that consumers are indifferent between CEA and field/soil-based agricultural production technologies, and prefer raw produce and processed goods labeled as grown with freshwater over those labeled as grown with non-conventional water sources or without a water label. However, consumer preferences for non‑conventional water sources and the effectiveness of information may differ depending on the product type and water source.
Recommended Citation
Kane, Rachel, "Consumer Preferences for Tomatoes Grown with Non-Conventional Water Sources: The Role of Stigma Mitigation Mechanisms" (2026). All Theses. 4842.
https://open.clemson.edu/all_theses/4842