Abstract
The Japanese Crested Ibis, Nipponia nippon, known as toki in Japan, remains critically endangered because of habitat loss and increased pesticide use by farmers. A number of projects at Sado seeks to provide a suitable habitat for the development of a wild population of Ibis by encouraging a particular form of low fertilizer/low agrichemical rice cultivation. The rice from these projects is marketed as " Toki Hikari " (Koshihikari is a popular rice variety in Japan). Our study evaluates the extent to which consumers are prepared to pay for the rice produced as part of such conservation efforts.We adopted the dichotomous alternative Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) to estimate the value that consumers would place on such rice. In this study, we determined that the average intention of payment of consumer for Toki Hikari rice was 8,093 yen per 10 Kg. We also proved that the balance between the average price of payable intention and the price of Toki-Hikari rice was small, 574 yen. We were able to show that under the current marketing conditions for Toki-Hikari rice and for increasing the consumption of such rice, some conditions other than the price were needed. And also, it was cleared through this study that the price gap between Toki Hikari rice and other rice, which was estimated at almost 6,032 yen per 10 Kg, would become 2,061 yen per 10 Kg. This price gap means that the rice produced as part of establishing a habitat for Japanese Ibis will be able to marketed at a higher price than other rice.
