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

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 dis...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sustainability 2016-11, Vol.8 (11), p.1157-1157
Main Authors: Giampietri, Elisa, Koemle, Dieter B A, Yu, Xiaohua, Finco, Adele
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural production
Agriculture
Common Agricultural Policy
Consumer attitudes
Consumers
Farmers markets
Food
Food quality
Food supply
Income distribution
Rural areas
Social responsibility
Supply chains
Sustainability
Sustainable development
Willingness to pay
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary: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.
ISSN:2071-1050
2071-1050
DOI:10.3390/su8111157