Willingness to pay for pesticide-free vegetables in Hokkaido, Japan: the relationship between appearance and pesticide use

In recent years, the problem of food loss has been severe worldwide, with an annual waste of 1.3 billion tons of food.^{Footnote 1} Meanwhile, Japan’s annual food loss in 2020 was approximately 5.2 million tons. Although Japan, with a low food self-sufficiency rate on a calorie basis (37% in 2020), imports numerous food items from foreign countries, many foods are discarded (Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan 2022a (hereafter, MAFF)). The breakdown of food loss is as follows: business food loss (2.75 million tons) and household food loss (2.47 million tons). Taking a…