IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/zbw/espost/309288.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does Internet use help to achieve sustainable food consumption? Evidence from rural China

Author

Listed:
  • Liu, Jian
  • Ren, Yanjun
  • Hong, Yu
  • Glauben, Thomas
  • Li, Qiang

Abstract

Internet use is widely studied as an important socio-economic factor influencing agricultural productivity, income, the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices, and farmer welfare, but scant attention is given to its influence on sustainable food consumption. Using longitudinal data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), this study seeks to better understand the causal effect of Internet use on sustainable food consumption measured by food carbon and food water footprints and shed light on its underlying channels. The instrumental variable estimation is used to solve the endogeneity problem of Internet use and the propensity score matching (PSM) method is used for robustness check. The results show that Internet use significantly decreases food carbon and food water footprints by 18.1 % and 10.6 %, respectively. Internet use promotes the development of sustainable food consumption mainly by reducing the consumption of animal-based food such as pork and eggs. Further heterogeneity analysis results indicate that Internet use mainly affects the sustainable food consumption of young and high-income individuals. Policy implications for reducing food carbon and food water footprints and achieving a win-win situation for consumption and the environment are also discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Liu, Jian & Ren, Yanjun & Hong, Yu & Glauben, Thomas & Li, Qiang, 2025. "Does Internet use help to achieve sustainable food consumption? Evidence from rural China," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 9, pages 1-10.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:309288
    DOI: 10.1016/j.sftr.2025.100466
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/309288/1/Liu_2025_internet_use.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.sftr.2025.100466?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wolf, Oliver & Pérez-Domínguez, Ignacio & Rueda-Cantuche, Jose M. & Tukker, Arnold & Kleijn, René & de Koning, Arjan & Bausch-Goldbohm, Sandra & Verheijden, Marieke, 2011. "Do healthy diets in Europe matter to the environment? A quantitative analysis," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 8-28, January.
    2. Deng, Zhilong & Liu, Jian & Hong, Yu & Liu, Weigang, 2024. "The effect of internet use on nutritional intake and health outcomes: New evidence from rural China," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 11, pages 01-11.
    3. Puneet Vatsa & Junpeng Li & Phong Quoc Luu & Julio Cesar Botero‐R, 2023. "Internet use and consumption diversity: Evidence from rural China," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 1287-1308, August.
    4. Du, Shufa & Mroz, Tom A. & Zhai, Fengying & Popkin, Barry M., 2004. "Rapid income growth adversely affects diet quality in China--particularly for the poor!," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 59(7), pages 1505-1515, October.
    5. Zhao, Qiran & Yu, Xiaohua & Wang, Xiaobing & Glauben, Thomas, 2014. "The impact of parental migration on children's school performance in rural China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 43-54.
    6. Ren, Yanjun & Zhang, Yanjie & Castro Campos, Bente & Loy, Jens-Peter, 2020. "Unhealthy consumption behaviors and their intergenerational persistence: The role of education," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    7. Elijah N. Muange & Marther W. Ngigi, 2021. "Dietary quality and overnutrition among adults in Kenya: what role does ICT play?," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 13(4), pages 1013-1028, August.
    8. Jiaping Zhang & Zhiyong Cai & Mingwang Cheng & Huirong Zhang & Heng Zhang & Zhongkun Zhu, 2019. "Association of Internet Use with Attitudes Toward Food Safety in China: A Cross-Sectional Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(21), pages 1-19, October.
    9. Ma, Wanglin & Abdulai, Awudu, 2016. "Does cooperative membership improve household welfare? Evidence from apple farmers in China," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 94-102.
    10. Salahuddin, Mohammad & Alam, Khorshed & Ozturk, Ilhan, 2016. "The effects of Internet usage and economic growth on CO2 emissions in OECD countries: A panel investigation," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 1226-1235.
    11. Omid Zamani & Thomas Bittmann & Jens‐Peter Loy, 2024. "Does the internet bring food prices closer together? Exploring search engine query data in Iran," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(2), pages 688-715, June.
    12. Albert, Osei-Owusu Kwame & Marianne, Thomsen & Jonathan, Lindahl & Nino, Javakhishvili Larsen & Dario, Caro, 2020. "Tracking the carbon emissions of Denmark's five regions from a producer and consumer perspective," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    13. Sommer, Mark & Kratena, Kurt, 2017. "The Carbon Footprint of European Households and Income Distribution," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 62-72.
    14. Briggs, Adam & Chowdhury, Shyamal, 2018. "Economic development, food demand and the consequences for agricultural resource requirements: an application to Indonesia," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 62(3), July.
    15. Ren, Yanjun & Castro Campos, Bente & Peng, Yanling & Glauben, Thomas, 2021. "Nutrition transition with accelerating urbanization? Empirical evidence from rural China," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 13(3).
    16. Ren, Yanjun & Li, Hui & Wang, Xiaobing, 2019. "Family income and nutrition-related health: Evidence from food consumption in China," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 232(C), pages 58-76.
    17. Zamani, Omid & Bittmann, Thomas & Loy, Jens-Peter, 2018. "Search costs and cost pass-through: Evidence for the Iranian poultry market," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 119-122.
    18. Adam Briggs & Shyamal Chowdhury, 2018. "Economic development, food demand and the consequences for agricultural resource requirements: an application to Indonesia," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 62(3), pages 420-437, July.
    19. Sun, Shengyang & Zhang, Chao & Hu, Ruifa & Liu, Jian, 2023. "Do pesticide retailers’ recommendations aggravate pesticide overuse? Evidence from rural China," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 13(7), pages 1-1.
    20. Shengyang Sun & Chao Zhang & Ruifa Hu & Jian Liu, 2023. "Do Pesticide Retailers’ Recommendations Aggravate Pesticide Overuse? Evidence from Rural China," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-16, June.
    21. Huang, Yingying & Tian, Xu, 2019. "Food accessibility, diversity of agricultural production and dietary pattern in rural China," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 92-102.
    22. Pan He & Giovanni Baiocchi & Klaus Hubacek & Kuishuang Feng & Yang Yu, 2018. "The environmental impacts of rapidly changing diets and their nutritional quality in China," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 1(3), pages 122-127, March.
    23. Durba Kashyap & Tripti Agarwal, 2020. "Food loss in India: water footprint, land footprint and GHG emissions," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 2905-2918, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Deng, Zhilong & Liu, Jian & Hong, Yu & Liu, Weigang, 2024. "The effect of internet use on nutritional intake and health outcomes: New evidence from rural China," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 11, pages 01-11.
    2. Liu, Jian & Ren, Yanjun & Glauben, Thomas, 2021. "The effect of income inequality on nutritional outcomes: Evidence from rural China," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 22(3), pages 125-143.
    3. Jiajun Zhou & Sirimaporn Leepromrath & Xu Tian & De Zhou, 2020. "Dynamics of Chinese Diet Divergence from Chinese Food Pagoda and Its Association with Adiposity and Influential Factors: 2004–2011," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(2), pages 1-22, January.
    4. Jingjing Wang & Jiabin Xu & Silin Chen, 2025. "Internet Use, Social Capital, and Farmers’ Green Production Behavior: Evidence from Agricultural Cooperatives in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(3), pages 1-21, January.
    5. Ren, Yanjun & Castro Campos, Bente & Loy, Jens-Peter & Brosig, Stephan, 2019. "Low-income and overweight in China: Evidence from a life-course utility model," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 18(8), pages 1753-1767.
    6. Aixi Han & Tianhao Sun & Jing Ming & Li Chai & Xiawei Liao, 2020. "Are the Chinese Moving toward a Healthy Diet? Evidence from Macro Data from 1961 to 2017," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(15), pages 1-13, July.
    7. Zhao, Q. & Sun, X. & Guo, P. & Liu, X., 2018. "China s Migrant and Left-behind Children: Correlation of Parental Migration on Health, Cognitive and Non-cognitive Outcomes," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277164, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    8. Yi Cui & Thomas Glauben & Wei Si & Qiran Zhao, 2023. "The effect of Internet usage on dietary quality: Evidence from rural China," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(S1), pages 1478-1494, December.
    9. Xinru Han & Ping Xue & Wenbo Zhu & Xiudong Wang & Guojing Li, 2022. "Shrinking Working-Age Population and Food Demand: Evidence from Rural China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(21), pages 1-15, November.
    10. Fangfang Sheng & Jingjing Wang & Kevin Z. Chen & Shenggen Fan & Haixiu Gao, 2021. "Changing Chinese Diets to Achieve a Win–Win Solution for Health and the Environment," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 29(6), pages 34-52, November.
    11. Cui, Yi & Zhao, Qiran & Si, Wei & Fan, Shenggen, 2024. "Can information intervention improve dietary quality? Evidence from a randomized controlled trial in rural China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    12. Ding, Yawen & Min, Shi & Wang, Xiaobing & Yu, Xiaohua, 2022. "Memory of famine: The persistent impact of famine experience on food waste behavior," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    13. Xin Tan & Guanghua Lin, 2024. "The Influence of Regional Specialization in Agriculture on Farmers’ Pest Control Behaviors Based on a Dual Examination of Control Strategies and Control Costs," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-20, November.
    14. Zhiqi Sun & Ruifa Hu & Yu Hong, 2022. "Does yield gap still matter? Evidence from rice production in China," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 14(3), pages 829-840, June.
    15. Pan He & Beiming Cai & Giovanni Baiocchi & Zhu Liu, 2021. "Drivers of GHG emissions from dietary transition patterns in China: Supply versus demand options," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 25(3), pages 707-719, June.
    16. Kifle T. Sebhatu & Fatemeh Taheri & Tekeste Berhanu & Miet Maertens & Steven Van Passel & Marijke D'Haese, 2021. "Beyond focus: Exploring variability of service provision of agricultural cooperatives," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 92(2), pages 207-231, June.
    17. Thanh‐Tung Nguyen & Trung Thanh Nguyen & Ulrike Grote, 2023. "Internet use and agricultural productivity in rural Vietnam," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 1309-1326, August.
    18. Chao Zhang & Ruifa Hu, 2022. "Adoption of Direct Seeding, Yield and Fertilizer Use in Rice Production: Empirical Evidence from China," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 12(9), pages 1-15, September.
    19. Yannic Rehm & Lucas Chancel, 2022. "Measuring the Carbon Content of Wealth Evidence from France and Germany," PSE Working Papers halshs-03828939, HAL.
    20. Kelly Labart & Jean-Louis Arcand, 2008. "Santé et salaires : une estimation en variables instrumentales sur un panel de travailleurs chinois," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 186(5), pages 89-100.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:309288. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zbwkide.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.