Public’s Support for Beginning Farmers: An Experimental Study on the Role of Farmer’s Gender and Race

We evaluate whether beginning farmers’ gender and racial background affect people’s willingness to support them by purchasing their products and providing monetary and time/effort donations. We conduct an incentivized online experiment where we exogenously manipulate the race (i.e. White, Hispanic, and Black) and gender (i.e. male and female) of the beginning farmer’s picture on the food label. We then estimate the treatment effects on willingness-to-pay, monetary allocation, and effort/time allocation to support beginning farmers. We further conduct sub-sample analysis by participants’ gender and race to explore the potential source of discrimination (i.e. who discriminates against who). We find significant heterogeneity in treatment effects by gender and racial groups. The results of our study reemphasize the importance of creating educational programs and policy interventions that support minority farmers.