Consumers’ Demands and Preferences for Organic Foods: A Survey Study in Mashhad, Iran

Summary

Agriculture has always been an important sector of the Iranian economy. For this reason, the investigation of consumers' demands and priorities in relation to organic products is our concern since no study has been conducted in this area in Iran. This paper aims to investigate consumers' knowledge concerning organic foodstuffs and the factors influencing consumption of organic product in the families of Mashhad so that some recommendations may finally be presented. In fact, while organic farming has been promoted as an environmentally-friendly approach and has been developed during the last few years in most developed countries, there is little emphasis placed on this in developing countries such as Iran. In order to identify consumer demand for organic foods, 180 respondents were interviewed by means of a questionnaire.