1. 1
ARENBERG DOCTORAL SCHOOL
FACULTY OF BIOSCIENCE ENGINEERING
Pieter Vlaeminck
Dissertation presented in partial
fulfilment of the requirements for the
degree of PhD in Bioscience Engineering
January 2016
Supervisor:
Prof. dr. ir. Liesbet Vranken
TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE FOOD
AND AGRICULTURE:
AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF CONSUMER AND
SMALLHOLDER CHOICE BEHAVIOR
2. 2
TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE FOOD AND
AGRICULTURE: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF
CONSUMER AND SMALLHOLDER CHOICE
BEHAVIOR
Pieter VLAEMINCK
For a complete digital copy of the PhD:
vlaeminck.pieter@gmail.com
Supervisor:
Prof. Liesbet Vranken (KU Leuven)
Members of the Examination Committee:
Prof. Martin Hermy (Chairman – KU Leuven)
Prof. Erik Mathijs (KU Leuven)
Prof. Miet Maertens (KU Leuven)
Prof. Sandra Rousseau (KU Leuven)
Prof. Guido Pepermans (KU Leuven)
Prof. Wim Verbeke (UGent)
Januari 2016
Dissertation presented in
partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
PhD in Bioscience Engineering
4. 4
“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored”
– Aldous Huxley
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SUMMARY
Food connects us all. Both through the production and consumption of food we interact as
society with our environment. Food production and consumption shape our livelihood
strategies, the natural landscape and ecological and human health. Unfortunately, many
environmental and social sustainability challenges remain to be addressed to arrive at
more sustainable food and agricultural systems. This thesis takes a micro-economic
approach in analyzing individual economic decision making of both consumers in the
Global North and smallholders in the Global South in order to support policy
development towards a more sustainable food and agricultural system. It adopts an
explicitly dual perspective of both consumers and producers, and Global North and
Global South relationships since environmental and social challenges vary according to
their spatial context, from geographically different, evolving food demands to the
environmental impacts of intensive agriculture and challenges of deforestation and land
degradation in many poor and highly populated areas.
The first part of this thesis investigates the future role of food sustainability labels in
order to induce the much needed switch to sustainable food consumption patterns and
expand the green/social product market at the expense of the conventional market.
Chapter 2 tests how the current effectiveness and use of eco-labels can be stimulated
through the provision of more complete environmental information communicated via a
more intuitive eco-label design, a graded eco-label. We find that introducing the
possibility to compare the environmental performance of food products in a cognitively
easy way increases the eco-friendliness of consumers’ food baskets. Chapter 3 studies
whether ethical labels trigger the same value as the value consumers put on the
underlying ethical label characteristics and tries to understand which ethical attributes
have a higher possibility to influence consumer behavior. We observe that the current
label does not entirely capture the preferences that respondents have for the underlying
label characteristics and that consumers’ willingness-to-pay is highest for attributes where
the socially responsible element benefits humans.
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The second purpose of this thesis is to shed light on how the inclusion of smallholder
preferences can support the development of more community-supported and inclusive
policies for livelihood improvements, ecosystem protection, and contract/certification
design. Of particular interest is the relative importance smallholder farmers attach to
different attributes of sustainable certification programs such as Fair Trade since the
current ambiguous impact of certification schemes may partly be attributed to the
difference between Northern-driven standards and the preferences of smallholder farmers
in the South. We find that smallholder rice farmers in Benin prefer contracts with fewer
requirements (domestic contract) but contract benefits can outweigh the costs related to
these requirements in the case of Fair Trade contracts. This does not hold for Fair Trade
contracts with organic standards. In Chapter 5, we investigate whether preventive
resettlement can be a community-supported strategy to protect the livelihoods of
agricultural households and the local ecosystem services in Eastern Uganda from severe
environmental degradation. Given that many of the former resettlement policy attempts
originate from a top-down decision process ignoring the diversity and complexity of local
agricultural, social and cultural conditions and ecosystems, we find that taking
smallholders’ preferences into account can significantly increase future support. Besides,
we identify which program and policy design attributes are essential for a successful
preventive resettlement.
Our work highlights that food sustainability labels need to become more performant if
they want to induce a significant shift in consumer behavior towards more sustainable and
less resource-intensive choices. Besides, taking smallholders’ preferences into account
has the potential for policies to become more supported by local communities and
programs to be better tailored to smallholders’ needs while diminishing the current view
that many of these actions stem from Northern dominated discourses instead of
originating from a mutual interest. We hope that this thesis can motivate NGOs,
companies and policy makers to match their current policies and programs against our
results in order to strengthen their sustainable food, agricultural and land use strategies in
the Global North and in the Global South.
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CURRICULUM VITAE
Pieter Vlaeminck
Artsen Zonder Grenzenstraat 14, bus 102
2018 Antwerpen, Belgium
22/02/1987
(willing to relocate)
+32 495/48.88.07
vlaeminck.pieter@gmail.com
PROFILE
I am a highly project-oriented people-person who is seeking a challenging position as a young
professional in a dynamic environment. My personal driver is to promote sustainability thinking into
current modes of business. Supported by a distinct academic and practical background in financial
and agricultural economics, my aim is to be an added value as an innovation-driven and
experienced economist.
CURRENT EMPLOYMENT
OCTOBER 2011 – PRESENT
PhD researcher at the Division of Bio-economics, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, KU Leuven
Phd public defense (13/01/2016)
“Towards sustainable food and agriculture: an empirical analysis of consumer and smallholder choice
behavior.”
PUBLICATIONS, PROJECTS and CONSULTANCY
Vlaeminck, P., Jiang, T. and L. Vranken. (2014) Food labeling and eco-friendly
consumption: Experimental evidence from a Belgian supermarket. Ecological Economics,
108, 180–190. (Q1, 5yIF: 4.002)
Vlaeminck, Vandoren and Vranken. (2015). Consumers’ willingness to pay for Fair Trade
chocolate In Squicciarini, Mara P. and Johan Swinnen, The Economics of Chocolate, Oxford
University Press.
Vlaeminck, P., Maertens, M., Isabirye, M., Vanderhoydonks, F., Poesen, J., Deckers, S., and
Vranken, L. (2016). Coping with landslide risk through preventive resettlement. Designing
optimal strategies through choice experiments for the Mount Elgon region, Uganda. Land
Use Policy, 51, 301-311. (Q1, 5yIF: 3.095)
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De Valck J., J., Vlaeminck, P., Broekx, S., Liekens, I., Aertsens, J., Chen, W., Vranken, L.
(2014). Benefits of clearing existing forests to restore nature? Evidence from a discrete
choice experiment in Flanders, Belgium. Landscape and Urban Planning,125,65-75. (Q1,
5yIF: 3.659)
Vlaeminck, P., Jiang, T., Vranken, L. (2014). Labelling and sustainable food consumption:
experimental evidence from a Belgian supermarket. World Congress of Environmental and
Resource Economists. Istanbul, 28 June- 2 July 2014.
Vlaeminck, P., Maertens, M. Vanderhoydonks, F., Isabirye, M., Vranken, L. (2015). Optimal
resettlement strategies to cope with landslides on Mount Elgon, East Uganda. CSAE
Conference 2015: Economic Development in Africa. Oxford, 22nd - 24th March 2015.
Vlaeminck, P.,Jiang, T.,Vranken, L.(2014).Labelling and consumer behavior: experimental
evidence from a Belgian supermarket. Proceedings of the 2014 EAAE International
Congress. Ljubljana, Slovenia,August 26-29, 2014(art.nr.182742)(pp.1-13).
VITO, KUL and Idea Consult. (2014). Investigation of the feasibility and mapping of a
possible approach towards a carbon, water and waste neutral Flemish food industry by
2030. Study commissioned by the Environment, Nature and Energy department of the
Flemish government.
LANGUAGES
Dutch: Native Spanish: Good
English: Advanced German: Basic
French: Advanced
SKILLS and EXPERIENCE
Management and development skills: Experience in project management, developing
partnerships, managing multidisciplinary teams and managing remote teams
(directed research teams and projects in Cuba and Uganda), scouts leader (6y),
fraternity presidium
Communication and discussion skills: frequent conference speaker, advisor and
former member of the Model United Nations Society Belgium
Analytical skills: Research, analysis and synthesis on several financial and
sustainability topics
Self-reliance skills: Sailing (crossing the Atlantic), travelling, climbing and
backcountry skiing
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EDUCATION
KU LEUVEN:
2009-2010: Master after Master in Financial Economics (LSBE)
Master thesis: “Crossing networks: Impact on the dealer’s quotes.” - Great distinction (79,7%)
2005-2009: Business Economics (KUL) – Orientation: Finance.
Master thesis: “Are there factors recognizing and predicting financial bubbles?” - Master: 76.4%
UNIVERSITY OF GRANADA:
2007-2008: Erasmus Exchange Program: Granada (Spain, 8 months)
INTERNSHIPS
Deloitte : enterprise risk services (1 month) – August 2009 (valuing complex
financial products)
ING bank: market room Brussels (1 month) – August 2008 (fixed income desk)
PROFESSIONAL INTRESTS
Food economics, sustainability and agricultural systems
Behavioral Finance, Nudging and Economics
Development Economics, Microfinance and Basic Income
Food entrepreneurship and innovation
