Research

Find my CV here.

Peer reviewed publication

Dusoruth, V., Peterson, H. H., & Schmitt, J. (2018). Estimating a Local Food Waste Baseline. Journal of Food Products Marketing, 24(5), 654-680. [Special Food Waste Issue]

Reports and other works

Dusoruth, V. & Peterson, H. H. (Fall 2018). Marketing Strategies Based on Shared Values: A Survey of Farmers’ Experiences & Perspectives. Department of Applied Economics, University of Minnesota.

Dusoruth, V. & Peterson, H. H. (Fall 2017). Judging Food by its Cover? Cosmetic Deterioration and Date Labeling in Household Food Waste. Minnesota Applied Economist. Department of Applied Economics, University of Minnesota.

Dusoruth, V., Peterson, H. H., & Schmitt, J. (2018). Local Food Rescue Pilot to Food Shelves: Identifying Approaches for Scaling Up. Institute on the Environment with Hennepin County.

Other works in progress

• Impact of Messaging on Organics Recycling and Food Waste Habits: A Randomized Control Trial.
• Who Participates in Urban Agriculture? An Empirical Analysis (with Marc Bellemare)
• Preferences for Organics Disposal Programs: A Choice Experiment Approach. (with Hikaru Peterson, Pedro Urriola, & Nic Jelinski)

Over 30% of the food produced in the United States is wasted throughout the supply chain, with households accounting for the highest proportion. To help mitigate the problem, public policy has focused on increasing residential access to curbside food and organics recycling, which has doubled in the past five years. However, household compliance to source separation remains very poor causing these ambitious programs to fail at meeting their waste diversion goals. Food scraps continue to be the largest category of materials that are landfilled, substantially contributing to the emission of methane gas and a host of other economic and environmental problems. One hypothesis is that engaging in activities to reduce food waste generated at home or dedicating efforts towards meticulous source separation of food scraps and organics may impose significant time costs to households. Building on the existing literature, this paper develops a structural model to determine the economic relationship between household food waste reduction efforts, organics recycling efforts, and the opportunity cost of time in a public goods framework. The paper uses data from a nationally representative survey and gathers regional variables from multiple sources to gauge food waste reduction and recycling regulations as well as the median Air Quality Index (AQI). The paper then employs two-stage least squares models to estimate the relationships and address the endogeneity of the opportunity cost of time variable structurally. Empirical results show that people’s opportunity cost of time may negatively impact their willingness to participate in both food waste reduction activities as well as organics recycling endeavors. Findings suggest that public policy should focus on making food waste reduction at home a more convenient activity for people to reduce time costs. Further, while it may be desirable to consider how to improve residential organics programs that have proven to be largely expensive and inefficient thus far, it may be more useful to think of other alternatives as potential solutions. Particularly, there may be benefit in taking the burden off the hand of private individuals and focusing on new and innovative technologies that can allow central source separation to meet public policy goals more effectively.