Consumers’ attitude towards farmers’ markets in Tuscany

Benedetto Rocchi (), Alessio Cavicchi and M. Baldeschi

No 95224, 116th Seminar, October 27-30, 2010, Parma, Italy from European Association of Agricultural Economists

Abstract: Farmers Markets (FMs) around the world are often considered as one key response to the less sustainable conventional food production systems. Despite the economic crisis, international studies show that the most important factor leading people to buy fresh products in these points of sale is the quality. In fact, consumers usually cite “better food quality”, “locally produced foods”, “higher social interaction” and “learning directly about the vendors and their food production practices”, as the principal motivations in buying in FM environment. In this paper the results of a survey carried out in several FMs and shops in Tuscany are presented. A sample of consumers were interviewed on-site using a structured questionnaire. The attitude of respondent towards FM was assessed using a test scale composed of 16 items referring to five different features of this form of distribution, supposed to be relevant in the consumer choice: quality of products, direct contact with farmers, convenience, environmental sustainability, and support for rural development processes. The high level of reliability of the attitude scale allowed its use in performing a cluster analysis of observed units. The cluster analysis allowed to identify two groups of consumers with different characteristics both in term of socio-economic descriptive variables and in term of attitudes and motivations towards FMs.

Keywords: Agribusiness; Agricultural and Food Policy; Community/Rural/Urban Development; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Labor and Human Capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 13
Date: 2010-10-27
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-mkt
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:eaa116:95224

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.95224

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