The Eucalyptus Firewood: Understanding Consumers’ Behaviour and Motivations

Italy is one of the world’s major importers of firewood, despite the large amount of Italian eucalyptus plantations that could satisfy part of the country’s internal demand. The demand is critical for farmers to understand developing market dynamics and people’s willingness to buy a product is relat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Agriculture (Basel) 2020-11, Vol.10 (11), p.512
Main Authors: Palmieri, Nadia, Suardi, Alessandro, Latterini, Francesco, Pari, Luigi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biomass
Consumer behavior
consumer choices
Consumers
Environmental aspects
Eucalyptus
Familiarity
firewood
Forestry
Hardwoods
Investigations
Italy
multilevel logistic regression model
Plantations
Questionnaires
Social networks
Sociodemographics
Supply chains
Variables
willingness to consume
Wood
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Summary:Italy is one of the world’s major importers of firewood, despite the large amount of Italian eucalyptus plantations that could satisfy part of the country’s internal demand. The demand is critical for farmers to understand developing market dynamics and people’s willingness to buy a product is related to several parameters, including different supply methods. This study aimed to analyse the willingness to consume domestic eucalyptus firewood, and the related motivations of consumers considering the preferred supply method. Data was collected through a web-survey and analysed applying a multilevel regression. In general, the sample showed that attention is paid to both the type of wood and its origin, and that there is a preference for loose firewood as a supply method. Our findings suggest that factors such as age, experience, and familiarity with a product, the supply method, attitude towards novelty, provenience, and energetic density of firewood have an important role in shaping individual inclination towards consuming domestic eucalyptus firewood. This implies that the owners of eucalyptus plantations should target mostly young and detail-oriented consumers, and should also try to clearly give information regarding the origin of the product and its technical characteristics.
ISSN:2077-0472
2077-0472
DOI:10.3390/agriculture10110512