Components Influencing on Preferences of Organic Fruits and Vegetables Consumption in Mashhad

Food consumption patterns are changing as a result of health and environmental issues. Subsequently, farmers are under increasing pressure to develop and utilize less toxic production methods and pest control. Organic agriculture is a production system that sustains the health of soils, ecosystems, and people. It relies on ecological processes, biodiversity, and cycles adapted to local conditions, rather than the use of inputs with adverse effects. Organic agriculture combines tradition, innovation and science to benefit the shared environment and promote fair relationships and a good quality of life for all involved. In general, no chemicals are used on organic farms. These materials are disregarded in soil preparation, plant nutrition’s, storage, processing, and sale. In other words, organic agriculture is a kind of farming, which aims to established an integrated agriculture system which has no interference with environmental and economic benefits. Therefore, organic agriculture is the sustainable system of food production. Diverse climate and crops and animal in Iran have created potentials for the establishment and development of organic farming. However, on the production side, many farmers still hesitate to adopt organic farming due to the lack of information on market demand and the profitability of organic farming. In other words, despite benefits for this type of production in recent years development of markets requires analysis and understanding behavior pattern of consumers fruits and vegetable are very important as far as production and consumption are concerned. Based on the reports from FAO fruit production in Iran in the year 2010 were 3.5 million tons and vegetable production was 16.351 million tons. There have been a considerable number of studies on organic consumers in many countries, especially in Europe and other western countries and many studies have found a variety of factors that can potentially influence organic food consumption. Consumer behavior involves a complex and sophisticated pattern that requires marketing research in order to understand the process. The basic idea behind consumer research is the questioning of consumers about their reasons for buying, however, researchers have to go deeper and also ask people how and in which circumstances they purchase and consume. Consumer behavior consists of ideas, feelings, experiences and actions, along with additional environmental factors like advertisements and price. The major goal of this study was to model components influencing consumer’s preferences of organics fruits and vegetables in Mashhad and to provide information that is needed for the organic food industry to expand its market and improve its profitability
This study examines components influencing consumer’s preferences of organics fruits and vegetables using a multivariate probit model with seemingly unrelated equation. Application of multivariate probit model is normally used when two related decisions are decided upon by a decision maker or different decision makers. The model is based on this assumption that two decisions (in this study: the willingness to pay for organic fruit and for organic vegetables) have an interactive correlation. Simple random sampling was applied and total observation of 200 was selected. The data were collected by completing the questionnaire in (2012) throughout Mashhad residents. The software used for the estimation multivariate probit model was Sata 12.
The results showed that the education level of consumers, information about the supply of organic product in Mashhad, the importance of product appearance and importance of nutrition value are variables which have a significant effect on the simultaneous probability of willingness to pay for organic fruits and vegetables. Regarding the results, attention to the promotion of product appearance, increasing the nutrition content and accessibility to the product in the market to consumers are advised.
In this study, willingness to pay higher prices for organic fruits and vegetables was examined. Due to budgetary constraints and prioritization of households to buy organic fruits or vegetables and considering the potential impact of demand for organic products on demand for other products, multivariate probit (SUR_PROBIT) was used.