Consumers’ Sense of Farmers’ Markets: Tasting Sustainability or Just Purchasing Food?

Abstract

Sustainable food consumption has attracted widespread attention over the last decades by scholars, policy makers and consumers. In line with this, farmers' markets (FMs) have the potential to encourage sustainable agricultural production and consumption. By reducing the number of actors and distances along the food chain, these alternative food systems foster the reconnection between farmers and consumers and contribute to different social, economic and environmentally sustainable goals. This paper provides insights into how consumers' sustainability concerns are related to their motivation for shopping at FMs. By means of a choice experiment, we analyze the determinants of consumers' preferences for buying apples at FMs. We are particularly interested in understanding how attitudes towards the three sustainability dimensions are related to consumer preferences in this context. We find that consumer attitudes towards direct contact with producers, contributing to farmers' income, and environmental benefits, can be directly related to product characteristics that are specific to FMs.

Sustainability Perception of Local Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Consumers’ Attitude: A New Italian Perspective

“…Especially the last two aspects, which are often related to the local production and consumption. In Italy, where this research takes place, local food purchases are increasing, and they are considered a more sustainable alternative to the highly resource intensive modern agri-food supply chain [3][4][5][6], but they can also be in a position to enhance the sustainability in terms of socio-economic equity and environmental and local development [7][8][9].…”

Making Sense of Sustainability: A Practice Theories Approach to Buying Food

“…Rather, access should be explained within the context of people's "lived experiences" [7]. Such an approach warrants a qualitative study from a consumers' perspective, to complement the existing primarily quantitative research focussed on consumer values and attitudes (see e.g., [2,9,10]). …”

“…In order to conduct such a study, the body of practice theories offers insightful theoretical and analytical tools (see [8][9][10][11]). With their focus on social practice as the basic unit of analysis instead of overstating either individual actors or social structures, practice theories start from daily routines food consumption is particularly well served by these notions, as a large share of consumption takes place on an non-deliberate level; "we consume in a state of distraction" (after [20]).…”

Trade Dynamics in the Italian Floriculture Sector within EU Borders: A Gravity Model Analysis

“…Accordingly, high GDP and production volumes of a country suggest a high capacity to buy and to supply the needs of other trade partners and this evidence supports the idea that current bilateral trade flows between Member States will last in the future, whereas it is not easy to forecast future trade relationships between Italy and new emerging producers as developing countries. In relation to flower consumption, the comprehension of its negative influence on Italian trade needs some further investigation, as by means of mixed-method approaches as commonly used for food analysis (Giampietri et al, 2016a(Giampietri et al, , 2016b, and represents a limitation of this study. Since flowers are not primary goods, it is plausible that their consumption is both linked to GDP per capita and specific consumer preferences and habits.…”