Organic Food Sector Research Articles

Importance of Organic Agriculture and Food in Argentina: An Explorative Analysis of the Domestic Situation and its Regional Context

Argentina substantially contributes to the global organic agriculture and food sector due to its large areas of organically managed agricultural land. However, most of the organic production is foreseen for export. Overall, food supply for the domestic organic market is hardly tapped. This study investigates the current importance of organic agriculture and food production as well as its consumption within the country. The novelty of the study also lies in the observation, documentation and analysis of latest stakeholder-driven developments towards organic agriculture and food. The publication allows to make the Argentinian organic market significantly more visible for the international audience.

Not everybody prefers organic food: unobserved heterogeneity in U.S. consumers’ preference for organic apple and milk

ABSTRACTDespite organic food’s growing market share and the often-found premiums for organic foods in willingness-to-pay studies, the ultimate size of the organic food market remains unclear. Due to perceived taste, safety or appearance, some people may, in fact, not prefer organic. This study uses data from choice experiments to determine preference for organic versus conventional milk and apples. Using latent class and random parameter models, nontrivial shares (at least 33%) of consumers in both markets are not willing to pay a premium for organic. These results have implications for food marketers but also for economists modelling the organic food sector, which typically assume vertical differentiation.

Communities of interest as a lens to explore the advantage of collaborative behaviour for developing economies

This article introduces the concept of communities of interest (CoIs) as a lens to explore the developing collaborative practice. A shared philosophy between companies offers a means of understanding the behaviour of individuals within a community context. This context is an important element within a developing economy, because this shared experience enables organizations to develop and learn together. The article draws on a study within the Welsh organic food sector to illustrate the way that the CoI concept provides an informative framework to explore interaction. The concept of a shared philosophy providing a distinct community identity is one that can be transposed to a number of sectors and offers a creative lens for developing economies as network connections are seen as integral aspects of how companies are able to grow.

The Resilience of a Sustainability Entrepreneur in the Swedish Food System

Organizational resilience emphasizes the adaptive capacity for renewal after crisis. This paper explores the sustainability and resilience of a not-for-profit firm that claims to contribute to sustainable development of the food system. We used semi-structured interviews and Holling’s adaptive cycle as a heuristic device to assess what constitutes social and sustainable entrepreneurship in this case, and we discuss the determinants of organizational resilience. The business, Biodynamiska Produkter (BP), has experienced periods of growth, conservation and rapid decline in demand, followed by periods of re-organization. Our results suggest that BP, with its social mission and focus on organic food, meets the criteria of both a social and sustainability entrepreneurial organization. BP also exhibits criteria for organizational resilience: two major crises in the 1970s and late 1990s were met by re-organization (transformation) and novel market innovations (adaptations). BP has promoted the organic food sector in Sweden, but not profited from this. In this case study, resilience has enhanced sustainability in general, but trade-offs were also identified. The emphasis on trust, local identity, social objectives and slow decisions may have impeded both economic performance and new adaptations. Since the successful innovation Ekolådan in 2003, crises have been met by consolidation rather than new innovations.

National image as a competitive disadvantage: the case of the New Zealand organic food industry

This article examines why organic agriculture and food consumption developed more strongly in some countries than others between the 1970s and the 2000s. The focus is the limited growth of the New Zealand organic sector, which contrasts with countries such as Denmark which were similar in size and shared significant export agri-business sectors, but whose organic food sector became significantly larger. While the power of incumbent vested interests and unsupportive public policies emerge as major explanatory factors, the article argues that the long-established national image of New Zealand as a clean and green country may have been the major constraint.

Organic food consumption in Taiwan: Motives, involvement, and purchase intention under the moderating role of uncertainty

Despite the progressive development of the organic food sector in Taiwan, little is known about how consumers’ consumption motives will influence organic food decision through various degrees of involvement and whether or not consumers with various degrees of uncertainty will vary in their intention to buy organic foods. The current study aims to examine the effect of consumption motives on behavioral intention related to organic food consumption under the mediating role of involvement as well as the moderating role of uncertainty. Research data were collected from organic food consumers in Taiwan via a questionnaire survey, eventually obtaining 457 valid questionnaires for analysis. This study tested the overall model fit and hypotheses through structural equation modeling method (SEM). The results show that consumer involvement significantly mediates the effects of health consciousness and ecological motives on organic food purchase intention, but not applied to food safety concern. Moreover, the moderating effect of uncertainty is statistical significance, indicating that the relationship between involvement and purchase intention becomes weaker in the condition of consumers with higher degree of uncertainty. Several implications and suggestions are also discussed for organic food providers and marketers.

© Faculty of Management University of Warsaw. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.7172/2449-6634.jmcbem.2016.1.4 Journal of Marketing and Consumer Behaviour in Emerging Markets 1(3)2016 42 (42–50) Evaluating Gaps in Consumer Behavior Research on Organic Foods: A Critical Literature Review under Bangladesh Context

The global demand for organic foods has inspired the academicians and practicing professionals to explore consumer purchase behavior in this sector. The multiple promises that organic foods hold for the future – like sustainable food production, food safety, food security, nutrition and reduction of green-house gases – all might have influenced the recent rise of behavioral research in the organic food sector. Interestingly, Bangladesh has been a producer of organic foods since the early ‘80s; however, only a handful of studies could be traced that actually studied consumer behavior in this sector. The current paper explored the important roles that organic foods might play in Bangladesh, synthesized findings of past studies under Bangladesh context, and justified probable areas that might be investigated in future. Therefore, plausible gaps were explored in the existing literature pertaining to Bangladesh context and a tentative research agenda for future researchers was proposed. JEL classification: M30, M31, M39

Diffusion of food policy in the U.S.: The case of organic certification

Organic food certification policy and programs are an interesting case to explore in terms of policy diffusion, as there has been interesting dynamics between the federal and state levels, and great diversity in the pace of diffusion across states. At the same time, this policy diffusion underlies a very dynamic marketplace that has relied on government-based certification policies and programs to stabilize and support growth of the organic food sector. The focus of this paper is a cross-section time series analysis of organic policy adoptions over the past several decades to explore the types of factors that have influenced diffusion across time and space. Although federal policy activity has been a key driver of this dynamic, there are several other state-specific factors that also help to explain the differential diffusion of policies in this realm.

Organic Pineapple Farming in Ghana - A Good Choice for Smallholders?

The growth of organic food and drinks sector, higher than that of the conventional market, creates niche market opportunities mainly in developed countries. Organic certification is promoted in developing countries as a valuable export alternative, as well as a solution to environmental and health problems related to chemical input use. Organic products earn a premium price on the international market compared to conventional products. Hence, shifting from conventional to organic production might be an opportunity for small-scale farmers to reap high returns from their investments. Since switching to organic production requires adjustments of production techniques as well as the costs of the certification itself, several aspects need to be considered when determining its profitability. Using the pineapple sector in Ghana as an example, this paper sheds light on the feasibility and profitability of organic small-scale production. The literature so far has looked income effects on small scale farmers and price premia at consumer level. We provide the missing link between these papers by showing how the premium for organic produce at the farm level is formed, how it translates into profits and how it develops along the value chain. In doing so, the paper also has to set a focus to the specific conditions in Ghana, where the pineapple industry, once flourishing, has faced a crisis after 2005. With regard to donor efforts to bring back smallholders into export production, it is central to know if this is a viable possibility in Ghana. Analyzing costs and price formation along the fresh pineapple value chain, we find that production for the export market is a realistic option for both organic and conventional small-scale pineapple farmers. Second, the results suggest a positive effect of switching from conventional to organic production when competing on the global market for pineapple. Among smallholder farms, organic production is more advantageous than conventional production. Our findings also suggest that a considerable share of the organic price premium is passed from retail level to Ghanaian farmers. Nevertheless, other factors such as contract enforcement costs and standard compliance may hinder farmers from successfully participating in export markets.

Consumers' Awareness towards Organic Food Products in Coimbatore District

The high growth of population and life expectancies during the twentieth century increased demand for food supplies in India. To meet this demand, the green revolution became the corner stone of India's agricultural achievement that transformed India from a food-deficient to a self-sufficient country. This self-sufficiency was achieved through an indiscriminate and excessive use of synthetic pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Overexploitation of natural and non-renewable resources, indiscriminate and irrational use of synthetic inputs like chemical fertilizers and pesticides for producing more and more food products has impaired the ecological balance and has put the health of the consumers in jeopardy. Therefore, the apparent contradiction of necessity for nutritional safety on the one hand and environmental sustainability on the other made it inevitable to resort to alternative food products like organic food products. However, the growth of the organic food sector is not upto the mark in India due to lack of awareness among consumers. Thus, this study analyzed the consumers' level of awareness about organic food products in Coimbatore District. A disproportionate stratified random sampling method was used, and a total of 550 respondents were surveyed by using a questionnaire. The results showed that 40.5% and 38.4% of the respondents were aware and partly aware about organic food products, and only 14% of the respondents were highly aware about the same. Thus, awareness acts as a crucial factor in changing the attitude of consumers towards organic foods.

THE ROLE OF INNOVATION IN THE COMPETITIVENESS OF BRAZILIAN ORGANIC PRODUCTS

This research aimed at identifying the influence of the innovation in the competitiveness of organic agriculture and food industries in Brazil, seeking to create adhesion between a review of the literature and an empirical research about the strategies for innovation and competitiveness in the area. The trend in the globalized market indicates favorable prospects for organic food industries and, for this reason, they have realized the need for restructuration in order to meet the demands. The food industry has been searching for market differentials in order to add value to their products and make profit. As for the methodology, an exploratory research conducted with 54 managers of companies in the organic food sector, the result noted was that innovation had a positive influence over the competitiveness of organic products and that the research confirmed the theoretical base, showing that companies should focus on innovation in order to generate competitive advantages.

Mature and Emerging Organic Markets: Modelling Consumer Attitude and Behaviour With Partial Least Square Approach

Although the organic food sector has been researched for around 20 years, still little is known about consumer behaviour when comparing developed and emerging organic markets. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the determinants of organic food consumption in a mature (Germany) and an emerging (Chile) organic market using a model based on the theory of planned behaviour and partial least squares for parameters estimation. The reported results have implications for decision makers in both countries. The use of altruistic arguments in organic food marketing is a key aspect to increase organic food demand in both countries. However, egoistic motives might also gain importance in Chile, as they already have in Germany. In both countries, the barriers for organic food consumption have to be addressed with great attention—a lack of information and availability, especially in Chile, and scepticism about organic food in Germany.

The complement of political consumerism: Political producerism in the German organic food sector

In this chapter we will show that there is a direct link between political producerism and political consumerism, meaning that labels and especially the networks behind them enable consumers to make informed choices and to voice their political opinion. So far,academics often assessed labels from an economic point of view, for example adopting a game theoretic approach or dealing with the problem of asymmetric information in the food market (Golan, Kuchler, Mitchell, 2009; McCluskey, 2000; Guthman, 2006). Other academics such as Hebert (2010) argue that food labels are mainly established to cater to the economy of qualities, referring to the creation of luxury niche-market goods. In contrast to these accounts and to other accounts of authors such as Vogl, Kilcher & Schmidt (2005) and McMahon (2005), we believe that producers and retailers indeed are important agents in politics of food labelling. Rather than merely following the demands of the market, we will show that producers and retailers who engage in political producerism mainly act according to their own beliefs and standards.

Smallholder Organic Farmer and #8217;s Attitudes, Objectives and Barriers towards Production of Organic Fruits and Vegetables in India: A Multivariate Analysis

Indian organic food sector has experienced important growth during recent years. Despite growth potential, area under organic farming is meager. Indian smallholders (<2ha) are facing challenges to enter and sustain in the organic food sector and benefit from this growth in a sustainable way. In this context, the aim of this paper was to analyze smallholder farmer’s attitudes, objectives and barriers towards production of organic fruits and vegetables (F&V) in south India as well as to identify farmers’ profiles based on attitudes and objectives. The source of information used in this study was a field survey carried out during early 2014. Purposive random sampling technique was used to draw the sample (n=127) and the mode of data collection was face-to-face interviews; collected data were analyzed by using descriptive, factor and two-step cluster analysis. The results of factor analysis based on attitudes revealed that five factors including “Market”, “Environmental”, “Support”, Benefit & Cost” and “Community” factors explained 70.05 per cent of the total variance. Further, factor analysis based on objectives acknowledged the presence of three latent factors including “Economic”, “Environmental” and “Socio-cultural” factors explaining 77.90 per cent of the variance. Similarly, four latent factors were identified based on the factor analysis on sixteen barrier variables, representing “Production”, “Marketing”, Techno-managerial” and “Economic & Financial” barriers explained 68.52 per cent of the variance. Further, three clusters emerged on these attitudes and objective factor scores representing, 45 %, 23.6% and 31.50% of the sample size. All three clusters have different levels of orientation to produce organically on the basis of each factor. The “Market and economic” factors are most important in two clusters followed by “Government support” and “Environmental” factors; a third cluster was fairly indifferent towards the organic F&V production. Results of this research have implications for policy makers, marketing professionals towards organic agriculture development by calibrating appropriate strategies to promote organic farming and enabling supporting environment in south India.

Quality Function Deployment in the Organic Animal Food Sector: Application to Poultry Meat

This study presents the results of an Italian investigation into the development of food quality for poultry meat in the organic sector, using the quality function deployment technique. The results show that among the characteristics of poultry, meat consumers assign greater importance to those that are strictly related to animal welfare issues. Price and product appearance (i.e., colour, presence of fat) come in second. To meet these needs, producers can effectively operate along the supply chain by acting on poultry housing type, genotype lines, and stocking density. Information about these issues should then be shared with the consumers (i.e., clear product labelling).

Attitude and behaviour of consumers towards organic food: an exploratory study in India

The organic food sector is growing significantly and surmounted growth is being witnessed from tier 1 and tier 2 cities in India, indicating huge acceptance among the masses. The study provides insights into identifying the factors influencing the attitude and behaviour of consumers for organic food, which is currently gaining momentum in tier 2 cities in India. Six significant factors were found to influence the attitude towards organic food. They were perception towards organic food, health consciousness, product information, value for money, accessibility and trust. The demographic factors seemed to affect the attitude towards organic food, while they did not explain the actual buying behaviour. The paper attempts to provide evidence on the relatively under-researched area of attitude and behaviour towards organic food in the growing cities in India.

Attitude towards organic meat: an empirical investigation on West Balkans Countries (WBC) consumers

The organic meat market in West Balkan Countries (WBC) is quite young, but steadily growing. The aim of this paper is to better enable understanding of WBC consumers' awareness, attitude and perception towards organically produced meat, i.e. to gain insight into consumers' preferences, motives, attitudes and interest to buy such products in selected WBC (Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia). This paper provides a comparison to the results obtained by researchers in other countries. A questionnaire was completed by 900 respondents, which were representative of the WBC population. The data were subject to univariate analysis, chi-square tests, ANOVA and correlation analysis. Result indicated that the definition of ‘organic’ is not yet clearly installed in consumers' perceptions. Consumers perceive organic meat as healthy, safe, natural, tasty, expensive, environmental friendly and of good quality. WBC consumers express a positive attitude towards organic meat. These results are particularly useful for product marketing and future product development in the organic food sector, as they provide an indication as how it can better reach and satisfy existing organic food consumers, and possibly, adapt organic food consumers in order to attract new segments and a new generation of consumers.

Between Ideals and Reality: Development and Implementation of Fairness Standards in the Organic Food Sector

The organic sector is in an ongoing, but somewhat ambiguous, process of differentiation. Continuing growth has also entailed intensified competition and the emergence of conventional structures within the sector. Producers are under pressure to adapt their terms of production to these developments, bearing the risk that the original values and principles of organic farming may become irrelevant. To confront these tendencies and maintain their position on the market, organic producers and processors have launched a number of organic–fair initiatives. As some consumers attach importance to ethical aspects of consumption, these actors sense market opportunities in such quality differentiation. This article presents results of a study on current organic–fair criteria, as formulated by such initiatives. All of them define standards of distributive, procedural and informational fairness, with fair prices for producers and processors and long-term agreements being core standards. We show that distributive and procedural fairness are closely linked. Although organic–fair initiatives and their main protagonists focus on external fairness, such as fair prices for farmers, thus far internal concerns, such as minimum wages or employee involvement, are of less importance. The initiatives exemplify the differentiation of quality-oriented organic food producers in highly competitive markets. They have the potential to revitalise the original values of the sector and contribute significantly to ethical standardization therein. In order to make a substantial contribution to future development of the sector, a critical examination of aspects of internal fairness as well as the formulation of appropriate standards in this field is recommended.

The Brazilian organic food sector: Prospects and constraints of facilitating the inclusion of smallholders

The Brazilian organic food sector has experienced important growth during the last two decades. Brazilian smallholders, however, are facing huge challenges to enter and benefit from this growth in a sustainable way. Combining the lens of New Institutional Economics and socio-anthropology, we analyze six experiences of Brazilian smallholders who converted to organics in the 1990s’. Three different food systems are featured in this analysis: an alternative food system, which is strongly interwoven with the Brazilian Agro-ecological movement and two commercial food procurement systems oriented towards domestic and an export markets driven mainly by supermarket chains. The analytical focus was on 1) the governance of these food systems, 2) the constraints farmers are facing within these food systems and, 3) the benefits that they can expect from market inclusion. We highlighted the roles that NGOs, Faith-based organizations and public-related agencies play in supporting the inclusion of smallholders into all three food systems. We confirmed the arguments in support of pursuing the agro-ecological development based model in Brazil, but underlined that there is a critical lack of support for farmers included in the commercial market-oriented food systems. Such a lack is even more critical as the food systems driven by expanding supermarket chains are characterized by strong asymmetric power relations at the expense of smallholders. Considering the reluctance of NGOs and Faith-based organizations to support these farmers, we call for efforts to be made to provide a policy framework to enable public-related entities to secure sustainable inclusion into these systems and exit strategies for those experiencing exclusion from these highly competitive food systems.

Experiences and challenges in the development of an organic HACCP system

The use of Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) based quality assurance has a well established place in controlling safety hazards in food supply chains. The work in the Integrated Project QUALITYLOWINPUTFOOD, QLIFWP 6.2 was designed to support the implementation of HACCP systems in the organic food sector. The structure of the organic food supply chain was examined to identify those aspects that are common throughout the food industry and those that require special attention in organic systems. These differences arise during the production and processing stage and in the distribution chain, and are prescribed by organic legislation and standards. Information generated in QLIF WP6.1 (analysis of structures, conduct and performance of supply chains for organic foods in Europe) and the output from COST action organic HACCP provided a background for the production of HACCP protocols. The detail in the protocols was obtained by further examination of the production chain for the six selected commodities by Campden BRI and Agro Eco. The manuals provide up-to-date information on the concept of prerequisite programmes (PRPs) and the different types of control point such as PRP and Operational PRP in addition to critical control points (CCPs). Consideration is also given to the use of HACCP to manage food quality and organic integrity in the supply chain in addition to the management of food safety hazards. The study resulted in six commodity-specific HACCP training manuals that focus on primary production. These have been used to disseminate HACCP knowledge to businesses in the organic food supply chain. The second phase of the work package enabled the information in the training manuals to be disseminated to the organic sector by offering training workshops. The training was arranged at five venues arranged by partner organizations in the QLIF project. The final deliverable of this part of the project was to consolidate the six training manuals into one organic HACCP protocol document that includes updated information from other QLIF work packages and experiences gained from delegates attending the training workshops.