11253: Factors influencing organic urban consumers in developing countries

Kledal, Paul Rye and Sirieix, Lucie (2007) Factors influencing organic urban consumers in developing countries. [oral] Presentation at The Association of American Geographers, San Francisco, California, USA, April 17-21.

Summary

The main objective of our project is to study the urban economic factors influencing consumer preferences respectively for short versus long procurement systems supplying organic food in three developing countries : Brazil, China and Egypt.
It will consist of three tasks : (1) To document the urban socio-economic development of the chosen areas (2) to document the various organic food procurement networks and (3) to study consumers motivations and barriers to buy, and meaning of, organic food.
Our presentation will focus on the third task, for which focus groups will be used to :
- study consumer conflicts: organic vs convenience and price, organic vs local, organic vs freshness …
- assess under which conditions consumers are ready to buy organic products : grown / produced locally, specific mode of distribution or length of the distribution chain
- relate consumers’ concern and conflicts with (1) their values, (2) their knowledge about organic products, health, risk, (3) the distribution chains they use (long versus short commodity chains)
- assess within developed and developing countries common and specific consumers concerns,
attitudes and behaviours related to organic food and its distribution
Two Focus groups will be conducted in each case study, with products selected to cover examples of different choice situations such as imported organic products that compete with comparable products of local origin, or organic local products in supermarkets that compete with similar products from other distribution outlets.
Our presentation will focus on the Brazilian case.

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