Analysis of Factors Affecting Agricultural Organic Products Diffusion Among Consumers: Perception of Extension Workers pdf

ISSN 1818-4952© IDOSI Publications, 2009 Corresponding Author: Seyyed Mahmoud Hashemi, Department of Agricultural Extension and Education, Analysis of Factors Affecting Agricultural Orga

ISSN 1818-4952

© IDOSI Publications, 2009

Corresponding Author: Seyyed Mahmoud Hashemi, Department of Agricultural Extension and Education,

Analysis of Factors Affecting Agricultural Organic Products Diffusion Among

Consumers: Perception of Extension Workers

Ali Asadi, Morteza Akbari, Aboulghasem Sharifzadeh and Seyyed Mahmoud Hashemi

Department of Agricultural Extension and Education, 1

College of Agricultural Economics and Development, University of Tehran, Iran

Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Iran 2

Abstract: Decades ago, agrochemicals were introduced aiming at enhancing crop yields and at protecting crops

from pests Due to adaptation and resistance developed by pests to chemicals, every year higher amounts and new chemical compounds are used to protect crops, causing undesired side effects and raising the costs of food production The main purpose of this study was to explore factors affecting agricultural organic products

(AOP) diffusion among Iranian consumers A survey of 289 extension workers was conducted in Iran To collect

data, a questionnaire was designed The study found that TV & radio were the most important AOP information delivery methods Also results of exploratory factor analysis revealed that four factors determined about

59 percent of variations in diffusion of AOP: institutional (22.36 percent), cultural (16.28 percent), economic (10.24 percent) and production (9.81percent)

Key words: Agricultural Organic Products (AOP) % Extension Workers % Perception % Diffusion % Iran

INTRODUCTIN Stobbelaar et al., [16] organic products is food produced

Agriculture is an important economic sector in containing artificial coloring, flavoring or aromatic developing countries such as Iran [1] In the past substances, preservatives, or genetically modified two decades, growing environmental awareness in ingredients

combination with concerns about safer foods have led Consumer actions regarding organic products stem people to question modern agricultural practices [2] In from attitudes that in turn linked to a complex set of ideas, response to concerns about conventional agricultural motivations and experiences [17] Most of previous practices, food safety, human health concerns, [3-5] studies concluded that consumers purchase organic and environmental safety [6-9] interests in organically products because of a perception that such products are produced foods is increasing throughout the world safer, healthier and more environmental friendly than These concerns along with observed organic consumer conventionally produced alternatives [18]

behavior has led to emergence of various groups of Those studies designate how consumers perceive the organic consumers, namely environmentalists, food organic concept, examining issues related to the demand phobic's, healthy eaters, humanists, welfare enthusiasts for organic products, consumer attitudes and the factors

The most common definitions of an organically products The organic purchasing motives should be produced food emphasize product practices and attribute to some environmental, ethical, quality, health principles used and the ‘organic philosophy’ [11-13] consciousness and exploratory products buying Thus, while some definitions highlight dimensions such behavior, as well as to specific products attributes such

as ‘bio- fair’ or ‘natural product systems’ [13] and ‘green’ as nutrition, value, taste and price [6, 7, 10, 19-21]

or ‘environmental friendliness’ [14], others emphasize the Other consumer surveys demonstrate that, the major limited use of artificial chemicals in organic products motive for buying organic products seems to be health-[12], or its general philosophy [15] According to related [5,7,22-36] Environmental concerns are apparently

without artificial fertilizer or chemical pesticides, nor

not as strong a motive as health [5, 7, 32, 33] German whereas old consumers were more influenced by consumers, for example, were very concerned about considerations for their own health [8] Previous research health and food safety [37] Brunsoe [38] and Brunsoe shows that women tend to be more interested in organic and Bredahl [39] compare consumer segments in various products than men [8, 33] and that people with higher European countries and show that German consumers are education seem to be more willing to pay more for organic more interested in organic food than Danish consumers products [8, 31]

Several studies evaluated consumers' willingness to The result of Zhou and Chen [49] showed that pay, most often based on interviews For a review, 56 percent of the consumers had heard about organic Thompson [40] or Wier and Calverley [41], Based on products from TV, 47 percent learned about organic consumers' own statements [22, 42-45] and Jolly [31] point products from magazines, 23 percent through internet,

to high price premiums to be one of the most important 16 percent obtain the information from supermarket, reasons for not buying organic foods Jolly [31], found 10 percent had the knowledge from friends and 5 percent that consumers were willingness to pay a 37% price obtain the organic food information from other channels premium for organic products in the USA By comparison, Because most of previous researches in organic attitude Goldman and Glancy [46] reported that a third of rely upon consumers not on extension workers [50-52], respondents in a New York survey were willingness to hence this study was aimed to provide some important pay a 100% price premium for a residue free product information and implication for policy making through Ekelund [47] found that about 55% of respondents in analysis of extension workers' perception of AOP and Sweden were willingness to pay 25% above a regular, some other related topics which are crucial to adopt these conventionally grown product price, with another 26% products by consumers

of organic buyers’ willingness to pay 50% more

Overall, most consumers are not willingness to pay a Purpose and Objectives: The main purpose of this

price premium higher than 10-20 percent Yet, analysis study was to explore factors affecting AOP diffusion

of specific organic products markets across countries among consumers

suggests substantially higher actual price mark-ups

Turco [48], for example, reported organic price premiums Of Interest Were To:

ranging from 10% to as high as 100% depending on the

Demographic variables such as age, marital status, C Identify important methods and places to supply number and age of children and educational attainment AOP

might be important variables in explaining and predicting

consumer demand for organic products Estimates of habit MATERIALS AND METHODS

persistence linked to age and household composition

might also be important for measuring the potential Selection of Sample: The statistical population of the

growth of organic foods and income [40] Income seems study consisted of all the Iranian agricultural extension

to be the most influential factor to demand for organic workers (N = 2000) Applying stratified random sampling products, although there were significant exceptions from technique, 289 extension workers from five provinces were households of certain types of individuals that have selected (This value was derived through computing strong personal ideologies enforcing commitments to Cochran's formula)

organic products [40] All of these studies make it difficult

to draw a concrete image of the individuals that demand Instrument: To collect data on extension workers'

organic products While it was obvious that the variables attitudes of AOP, a questionnaire was designed such as income, age, gender, marital status, education, The questionnaire contained three sections: section 1 household size and store preference play roles in the pertained to general demographic and professional demand for organic products, it is unknown exactly how variables of the respondents like age, experience, gender large of a role they play and how they interact with one and educational level section 2 was designed to identify another Wandel and Bugge [8] have demonstrated age the most important AOP information delivery methods to differences with respect to purchase motives Young diffuse AOP using 7 items and section 3 was designed to consumers appear to base their choice of organic describe extension workers' perceptions of AOP diffusion products more on considerations for the environment, using 18 items which are rated on a five point continuum

ranging ‘‘strongly disagree, disagree, No opinion, agree,

strongly agree and several independent items to collect

data on respondents' perceptions and knowledge of AOP,

their knowledge of AOP attributes,the most important

places and delivery methods for AOP marketing and at the

end of the questionnaire space was left for subjects’ extra

thoughts

The questionnaire was found to have content and

face validity by a panel of experts consisting of

faculty members of Tehran University Departments of

Agricultural Extension and Education and food science

The initial questionnaire was pilot tested among extension

workers out of the study sampling framework (in Tehran

by 30 respondents) to analyze the reliability of each item

Questionnaire reliability was tested using Cronbach

alpha which is derived from the average correlations

of all the items on the scale (Rodeghier, 1996) The results

indicated that the reliability coefficient was acceptable

(alpha = 0.92)

Data Analysis: Data was analyzed using descriptive

and inferential statistics including frequencies,

percentage, mean score, median, factor analysis and

T-test and so forth

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Characteristics of Respondents: As shown in Table 1

the sample used in the present study were 185 men

(64percent) and 90 women (31.1percent) The mean age

was about 27 years The vast majority of respondents had

bachelor degrees (83.7 percent) and about 16 percent hold

master or PhD degrees

Extension Workers' Knowledge of Chemical Products

and AOP: Table 3 presents the extension workers'

knowledge of chemical products The vast majority of

respondents rated their knowledge level as "intermediate

or higher levels"(90.6 percent) and only 27 respondents

(9.3 percent) rated their knowledge level as below

intermediate level

In the term of knowledge of AOP, 42 percent of

respondents rated their knowledge level as "intermediate"

and knowledge of about 20 and 38 percent of respondents

was below and above intermediate level, respectively

(Table 4)

Extension Workers' Perceptions Towards AOP Types:

To describe Extension workers' perceptions towards the

importance of different types of organic products in Iran

Table 1: Total respondents by province

Table 2: Demographic Characteristics of Respondents

Age

Table 3: Extension workers' knowledge of chemical products Knowledge Frequency Percent Cumulative percentage

Table 4: Extension workers' knowledge of AOP Awareness level Frequency Percent Cumulative percent

(in near future), respondents were requested to assess the importance of these products using a five point Likert-type scale from 1 to 5 ranging from very low(1) to very high(2) As shown in Table 5, the most important AOP types were organic fruits followed by organic animal products, cereal, vegetable and fishery products

Types of AOP Information Delivery Methods: Results

showed that 34.16 percent of respondents (who were aware of AOP) used TV and radio for obtaining AOP information and contribution of magazines, web-based information, colleagues and friends, books and other types of information delivery was 17.24, 17.2, 17.92 and 13.48 percent of total used information delivery methods, respectively

Table 5: Importance of different types of organic products in Iran as Table 7: Ranking AOP attributes

perceived by the respondents

Table 6: Ranking Preferred information delivery methods for promoting

AOP consumption in society

Information

web-based information 275 3.45 1.06 0.308 6

Preferred AOP Information Delivery Methods: The

respondents were asked to express their views on the

importance of different information delivery methods to

use for making awareness of AOP among potential

consumers Table 7 shows TV and radio was considered

as the most important AOP delivery method Meanwhile,

web-based information and newspaper were determined

as the least important AOP delivery method

Extension Workers' Perception of AOP Attributes: To

determine the most important attributes of organic

products, respondents asked to indicate important

attributes of AOP (Table 9) It was found that flavor

was mentioned as the most important factor, followed

by safety, availability and appearance and so on (Table 9)

AOP Supply: The respondents were asked to express

their views on the importance of different AOP delivery

methods Table 8 shows using special labels and

packages for AOP were selected as the most important

AOP delivery methods On the other hand, Identified

Special markets and Selling AOP at the same place

compared to conventional products were determined as

the most important AOP delivery places

Factors Affecting the AOP Diffusion: A series of

exploratory factor analyses (SPSS11.5) were conducted

using the 18 variables with Varimax as a rotation method

and Eigen values greater than 1 as a cut-off point for the

Table 8: Ranking different AOP delivery methods as reported by respondents

Place Identified Special markets 283 4.00 0.98 0.24 Selling AOP at the same place

compared to conventional products 279 3.64 1.09 0.30

Roadside stand (local mass supply) 277 2.94 1.20 0.41

Table 9: Extracted Factors, Eigen value, variance percentage and Cumulative percentage of Effective Factors in AOP diffusion Factor Eigen value Percentage Cumulative percentage

number of factors extracted The analyses eventually resulted in the selection of a four-factor solution based on

17 out of the 18 initial variables These factors accounted for a total of 59.17 percent of the total variance explained

by the model Items in this four-factor solution loaded higher than 0.60 on each factor (except three – 0.50, 0.53 and 0.56) Cronbach’s alpha reliability tests also showed increased reliability, with values.0.92 KMO value was 0.91 and Bartlet statistic was significant at 1% level, which implies appropriateness of extracted variables for factor analysis Extracted factors, Eigen value, variance percentage and Cumulative percentage have shown in Table 11

The Four Factors, Which Extracted, Are as Follows Factor 1: 22.36 percent of the total variance explained,

comprising the following 6 variables as important AOP diffusion criteria: legally formulating and approving national food safety standards with special consideration

AOP diffusion 59.17

Institutional dimension 22.36

Cultural dimension 16.28

Production dimension 9.81

Economical dimension 10.74

of AOP production and consumption; establishing

national organization of AOP producers and consumers;

building national polices for developing AOP chains

including production, processing, marketing and

consumption; legally limit and control chemical and

non-natural inputs in agricultural production chains;

establishing appropriate mechanisms for marketing of

AOP through an AOP supply supermarkets, networks;

and coordinating governmental bodies (different

ministries, such as Agriculture, Health and Medical

Education, Commerce, etc) and other stakeholders in

process of production, marketing, trade This factor is

named "Institutional arrangements/ Institutional

dimension " Loadings ranged from 0.50 to 0.83

Factor 2: 16.28 percent of the total variance explained,

comprising the following six variables: to publish and to

deliver extension materials on AOP to families; Integrating

specific syllabus related to food safety and importance of

AOP production and consumption in related curriculum of

formal and informal education institutions; Appropriate

Public advertisement of AOP through public media such

as Seda _va_ Sima (National Iranian TV and Radio

Organization) and public newspapers; Organize a national

information movement (based on information and

communication and information technologies) aimed at

increasing public awareness about usefulness of AOP;

Training and persuading opinion leaders and social actors

(teachers, extension workers, workers, NGOs members,

etc.) to promote culture of AOP consumption in society;

and Allocating one day or week per year to AOP or safe

food based on AOP consumption as a symbolic cultural

affair This factor is named "Pro –APO awareness and

cultural building / Cultural dimension" Loadings ranged

from 0.56 to 0.75

Factor 3: 10.74 percent of the total variance explained,

comprising the following three variables: Allocating

subsidies and other incentives to production of AOP,

Facilitating private sector entrepreneurial investment

in production and market chains of AOP and

Appropriate pricing of AOP with coordination of

producers, consumers and other stakeholders or their

representatives This factor is named “Economics

affairs and financial facilitating / Economics dimension”

Loadings range from 0.61 to 0.74

Factor 4: 9.81 percent of the total variance explained,

comprising the following two variables: Developing

awareness of agricultural producers about pesticides

Fig 1: AOP extension process as a multidimensional process

effect on public health and national food safety and food healthy and Promoting suitable technologies and facilities for AOP production and processing in line with sustainable (low-external input or organic) agriculture This factor is named “Production enhancement/ Production dimension” Loadings ranged from 0.55 to 0.75

CONCLUSION

It seems developing organic products is an effective mechanism to achieve food safety and public health In addition, organic products are along with sustainable agricultural development Organic products are produced without the use of conventional pesticides and artificial fertilizers Facilitating AOP diffusion is a multidimensional process which consisted of several components, such as production, processing, marketing and so on

Indeed, different stakeholders plays effective role during diffusion of AOP in society Among involved stakeholders, extension workers as multi-disciplinary professionals can provide important information about effective factors in AOP diffusion in society Almost all extension workers involved in this research had heard about organic food Although their Knowledge is about disadvantages of pesticides and fertilizers are high, but their knowledge of AOP was at the intermediate level There is more information need on the hazard identification and characterization as well as on the intake

of food processing and food packaging chemicals with a special attention to recycled materials (paper, cardboard) that used preferentially in the AOP system In this order, publishing extension materials about AOP and delivering them to families could be effective mechanism for increasing public knowledge of AOP usefulness Mass media such as radio and particularly TV, with offering these programs, help to presentation of these products to people [49] Thus, as this research finding

explains, organizing a national information movement, 2 Akbari, M and A Asadi, 2008 A comparative based on information and communication and information

technologies, seems as an appropriate mechanism to

increase public knowledge of AOP usefulness

The results of factor analysis showed that, the first

and the major effective factor in AOP diffusion is

Institutional factors Therefore, planners and policy

makers must make facilities such as a long term preset In

addition, they must indicate distinct places for selling of

these products and correspondingly prepare themselves

for citizen’s education in this way

It is important for the consumers, to be well informed

on the actual content in residues for these various

products methods This holds not only for nitrates and

pesticides (being synthetic or natural) but also for other

relevant toxicants such as bio toxins and environmental

contaminants It also recommends collecting more

information on the occurrence and toxicity of pesticides,

herbicides and other natural toxicants that could be

relevant to the consumer’s health and adapt the

monitoring programs

Finally, these research findings indicate diffusion

of AOP is being as an important mechanism to

enhance food safety in society The extension of

AOP is a multi-dimensional process that includes

different components, such as production, marketing,

social awareness building, monitoring, institutional

supporting, etc Definitely, any planning aimed at

promoting AOP production and consumption require

considering different mentioned dimensions of AOP

extension based on collaboration and coordination of

stakeholders

ACKNOWLEDGEMNT

The authors gratefully acknowledge the scientific

board members of the Department of Agricultural

Extension and Education, Tehran University for their

valuable insights and guidance for carrying out this study

and compiling the questionnaire of the study

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