Antecedents of farmers’ willingness to participate in short food supply chains

Abstract

Purpose Despite the increasing consumers’ intent to support short food networks, the expansion of short food supply chains (SFSCs) remains limited. The purpose of this paper is to identify potential antecedents of farmers’ willingness to participate in SFSCs. Design/methodology/approach Using data from a sample of Greek farmers the authors examined whether farmers’ citizenship behaviour, the levels of their perceived competencies and the degree to which they feel accepted by their communities affect their willingness to engage in SFSCs. Findings Results indicate that producers’ citizenship behaviour does indeed have a positive impact on willingness to participate in SFSCs, whereas their perceptions of the acceptance they enjoy within their communities also significantly predict this willingness. On the contrary, self-perceived lack of communication and collaboration competencies diminishes this willingness. Originality/value To the best of our knowledge, this study is one of the first attempts to explore the role of farmers’ competencies in their willingness to participate in SFSCs. In addition, by integrating concepts derived from multiple disciplines, our work adds new factors in the wide spectrum of forces that impel or suppress farmers’ willingness to take part in alternative food distribution networks.

Social media for interactions with customers within the short food supply chain: the case of the SKIN project

“…Alternative and trust-based networks certainly help and stimulate sustainable and economic positive impacts for increasing cultural identity of rural areas (Blom-Zandstra et al, 2016;Le Velly and Dufeu, 2016;Bazzani and Canavari, 2013), thus reducing the informative gap among consumers, farmers and stakeholders (Barati et al, 2017;De Pascale et al, 2017;Contò et al, 2016). Active communication, plus the quality of the exchanged information are positively associated to trust levels in buyer or supplier interactions and communication and cooperation envisage a willingness to participate in SFSCs (Charatsari et al, 2018).…”

“…Knowledge exchange via local networks makes it possible for agri-food systems to move towards adoption of a sustainable approach (Sacchi et al, 2018). Short supply chains depend on an alternative form of social organisation, which is influenced by group norms that are important preconditions for the sustainability of these alternative food networks (Charatsari et al, 2018). Policy makers and public organisations promote more and more innovative agri-food sustainable practices and regional and local foods because people are worried about food safety and animal health scandals and want to know food supply chain dynamics better and to be informed about food's origin and production models (Elghannam et al, 2017;Fiore, 2016;Wubben et al, 2013).…”

Benefit Optimization of Short Food Supply Chains for Organic Products: A Simulation-Based Approach

“…Although both positive effects and barriers have been identified, in-depth research into the motivation of farmers to participate and engage in SFSCs is lacking [27,36]. The characteristic features of such markets and chains include their dynamism, trust, social involvement, and identifiability.…”

Exploring producers' motivations and challenges within a farmers' market

“…Extensive research has been conducted around consumers' perceptions of SFSCs (Crawford et al, 2018;Dodds and Holmes, 2017), consumers' behaviour towards purchasing in SFSCs (Giampietri et al, 2016), consumers' motivations underlying their preference for SFSCs (Elghannam et al, 2018;Petrescu et al, 2017) and consumers' challenges within SFSCs (Garner and Ayala, 2018). In contrast, the issue of producers' motivations to engage and the challenges that they face remain under researched (Charatsari et al, 2018). Only recently, some studies have attempted to shed some light on this (Bellante, 2017;Cox et al, 2008;Demartini et al, 2017).…”