Novel biotechnologies offer an avenue to improve farm animal welfare but face several potential challenges in the market. Consumers are demanding stricter animal welfare standards in livestock production but are wary of biotechnology applications in food and agriculture. This dissertation explores the market opportunities for biotechnology and animal welfare improvements in the pork and dairy industries. I take a comprehensive approach, employing experimental methods to investigate consumer receptivity to products with biotechnology and animal welfare traits; and producer intent to adopt such technologies into their operations.The first chapter explores the economic foundations, challenges, and opportunities for consumer acceptance of biotechnology applications in animal welfare, especially gene editing techniques. I review the food economics literature on consumer acceptance of biotechnology to improve animal welfare and discuss the emerging opportunities for future improvements through gene editing. I also discuss industry and policy implications of consumer demand for animal welfare and biotechnology in livestock applications. One of the first challenges at the nexus of biotechnology and animal welfare is effective communication between producer and consumer. Product labels communicate valuable traits to consumers but, when a single label represents multiple traits, communication can be hindered by consumer misinformation. The second chapter addresses the emerging phenomenon of redundant labels, which can address misinformation by explicitly indicating included qualities within a comprehensive label. I utilize data from a field experiment on willingness to pay for redundant labels in the U.S. organic fluid milk market when consumers are either uninformed or informed of the redundancy. Market share simulations demonstrate the market impacts and effectiveness of introducing a redundant label as a response strategy to recapture market share lost to increasingly prevalent individual labels. The third chapter also employs a field experiment and investigates the market viability of novel biotechnology applications that improve animal welfare. I evaluate U.S. consumer demand for pork produced using two animal welfare-improving biotechnologies – immunocastration and gene editing. Results indicate negative attitudes toward biotechnology outweigh animal welfare benefits, though products still garner a slight average premium due to heterogeneity in preferences. Findings support policies that balance regulatory approval costs with observed market acceptance and policies that provide for animal welfare demands. Market opportunities are dictated by all decision-makers in the market, including both consumers and producers. The complexities of the decision to adopt gene-editing technology at the farm gate are likely to be greater than a simple matter of profitability. In the final chapter, I investigate ex-ante technology adoption intent to address how non-pecuniary motivations influence a dairy producer’s decision to adopt gene-editing technology with animal welfare-improving benefits. This chapter extends random utility theory to account for situational influences on producer decision outcomes. I employ the experimental vignette methodology, and a random parameters ordered logit modeling approach. Findings point to a general resistance among dairy farmers towards gene-edited genetics, even with an animal welfare-improving application. Farmers can, however, become more amenable to the prospect of adopting gene-edited genetics through situational influences.
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