Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
The level of self-sufficiency showed to be rather high for Slovenian households; however,
result from the model doesn't confirm the expected inverse relations. The fact that
households buy more than a half of fruits and vegetables does not have a statistically
significant effect on frequency of purchase of organic and integrated fruit and vegetable.
Similar holds for dietary habits of households. Results from the model confirm that meal
preparation is not significantly related with higher probability to purchase organic or
integrated fruit and vegetables. Consumers which prepare at least one main meal within the
household a day might be named as “traditional eaters” and they are not necessary the main
purchasers of organic and integrated fruit and vegetable. Reversely; marginal effects suggest
that for this group of respondents the probability for frequent purchase (outcome Y=3)
decrease, however with low quasi elasticity.
Results for the last variable suggest that consumers from rural areas are generally less likely
to buy organic and integrated fruit and vegetables. This might be related either to the
problem of availability for these produces in rural area, insufficient awareness of consumers
but partially also to the household self-supply with fruit and vegetable.
4. Conclusion
The organic food market in Slovenia started to develop sporadically immediately at the
beginning of the period of economic transition, whereas the adequate certification system
evolved several years later with first farmers being certified before the year 2000. Since then
the both sides of the market are on rather sharp increase however, the supply side has some
deficiencies. Namely, the area under the organic farming is increasing and number of
farmers likewise, but is this is not sufficient to satisfy demand. Mainly due to the
phenomenon of passive organic farmers, especially within the animal husbandry sector that
are not marketing their produce into the organic sales channels. The organic farming area
growth is actually mainly within the pastures and grassland categories and the farmers'
main motivation to enter the organic farming is additional budgetary transfer without actual
intention to be active in marketing organic products. Therefore, domestic production is
relatively stagnant and Slovenian consumers can thus hardly obtain organic products of
Slovenian origin in the massive food distribution channels, where the growing demand is
mainly satisfied with imported products. It is therefore understandable that the involved
organic food consumers prefer to purchase directly from the farmers, even if this is related
with higher transaction costs, such as driving to the farm or visiting the farmers' market, etc.
However, beside the assurance that the purchased products are fresh and local, also the
prices and price premiums are lower when purchasing directly. In terms of per-capita
spending on organic food and share of organic food expenditure in total food budged
Slovenia with 17 EUR and 1% respectively ranks in the upper middle stratum of the EU27,
where all new member states shows much lower values. This might indicate that the
Slovenian organic food market is in the progressive stage of development however the
results from the price scan and margin evaluation prove the opposite. Price premium for
organic products in Slovenia are comparatively high (87%) with great variation between the
product categories, where the fresh products (particularly fruits and vegetables) tends to
have highest price margins. It is worth to notice, that when the price margins were analysed
by the sales channels the lowest figures were found for direct selling either on farm or
farmers' markets, whereas the margins were by far the highest in the conventional retail
chains. This somehow controversial with the fact that only about 15% of the total Slovenian
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