Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Lockie
et
al
. (2004) also examined how the motivations behind food choice interacted to
inf luence increasing levels of organic food consumption. They found the major direct inf luence
on increasing rates of organic food consumption to be consumers' commitment to the con-
sumption of foods they perceived to be natural. Women, and those responsible for household
food provisioning, were far more likely than others to be motivated by this concern. This was
followed by willingness to pay a premium for environmental values. The next most important
factor directly inf luencing rates of organic consumption was the level of motivation towards the
consumption of food that made the respondent feel good, physically and emotionally. Organic
food was not only believed to taste and smell better, but also to evoke feelings of safety and tra-
dition. Again, responsibility for household food provisioning and gender were the major deter-
minants of consumers' level of motivation towards sensory and emotional appeal.
Marketing organic foods
One of the things that is truly remarkable about organic foods, given their status as one of the
fastest growing sectors of the food industry, is how little their marketing depends either on
consumer research or on aggressive advertising and discounting (Hill and Lynchehaun 2002).
At face value, the 'demand-pull' perspective on organic sector growth would suggest that
organic growers have been in the enviable position of being able to concentrate their energies
on expanding their farming operations while receiving premium prices for their produce.
Despite a paucity of organic food advertising in the mainstream media, that media portrays
organics as the almost sole alternative to environmental and food safety risks associated with
industrial agriculture (see Lockie 2006). Analysis of newspaper references to organic food and
agriculture in the UK, USA and Australia suggests that the term 'organic' has come to signify
a loosely defined bundle of desirable attributes related to quality, safety, ecology, tradition and
provenance. In a world where regulatory agencies, and the complicated systems of quality
assurance they administer, seem incapable of guaranteeing the safety of conventional foods,
the organic label offers a simple, recognisable and, for some, comforting alternative (Lockie
2006). Unfortunately, for organic growers, organic produce does not necessarily 'walk off
supermarket shelves'. That a significant proportion of certified organic produce is still sold on
conventional markets demonstrates there is no guarantee that the use of organic methods will
result in the sale of a clearly differentiated organic product. As a consequence, marketing
efforts within the organic production sector have concentrated on the development of supply
chains (i.e. on the development of distribution and retailing arrangements) (Latacz-Lohmann
and Foster 1997, Baecke
et
al
. 2002) and on the development of an appropriate regulatory
regime to police usage of the term 'organic' (Guthman 2004).
The single most important strategy in the marketing of organic foods has been the estab-
lishment of regulatory systems to oversee the development of standards and inspection systems
for organic production, processing and labelling (see
Chapter
9
). In terms of market expan-
sion, independent third party certification of compliance with organic process standards
achieves several things. Most obviously, certification provides some measure of guarantee for
the buyer that they are getting what they pay for. As progress continues towards the harmoni-
sation of standards on both national and international levels, buyers may extend their confi-
dence to produce sourced from almost anywhere in the world. Further, even though no set of
standards can be expected to codify adequately all the principles of organic agriculture, or all
the conditions under which it might be practiced, compliance with these standards implies,
nevertheless, an integrity that encourages consumers to associate several desirable attributes
with certified organic foods even though, strictly speaking, those attributes fall outside the
scope of what is guaranteed. Such attributes include taste, healthfulness, and so on. From the
growers' perspective, independent certification enables those who have undertaken it to make
