Evaluating the minor coarse cereals product crowdfunding platform through evolutionary game analysis

Abstract

In the modern era, the minor coarse cereals (MCC) are particularly popular among consumers. Price fluctuations cause misperceptions for growers, but also bring about complications for processing enterprises and consumers. To solve this problem, a multi-grain product crowdfunding platform is proposed. To this end, an evolutionary game model is constructed to investigate the game equilibrium between growers and crowdfunders. The analysis determines that evolutionary game equilibrium is related to the relative price difference between the sowing period and the harvest period, and to the social/logistical cost. Under normal circumstances, the crowdfunder may default when the sowing-period price is greater than the harvest-period price. The grower may default if the sowing-period price is less than the harvest-period price. Therefore, in the design of a crowdfunding system for MCC products, a certain percentage of advance payment (30%) and certain default deposits should be collected from crowdfunders and growers, respectively.