Trust Management in Organic Agriculture: Sustainable Consumption Behavior, Environmentally Conscious Purchase Intention, and Healthy Food Choices

Abstract

We draw on outstanding recent research to substantiate factors driving pro-environmental food purchasing behavior. Throwing light on purchasing behavior for environmentally sustainable foods, our study highlights the relevance of consumer trust and motivations in organic product markets together with individuals' perceived value and willingness to buy such items throughout the choice behavior and decision-making process. Our findings prove that most aspects influencing consumers' attitudes for and choices of organic foods are related to their trust and perceptions of the nutritional benefits such products provide. The insights gained from our research extend present knowledge concerning consumer behavior and purchase intention for environmentally sustainable products. The chief gaps and issues identified by the review cover the variety of organic food consumer purchase intentions and behaviors, including the relative environmental performance of organic food production and the link between the motivational values and attitudes concerning the consumption of non-chemical products. Apart from sustainable agriculture and upsides of organic farming, the main disadvantages are as follows: recycling and aligning with natural operations does not necessitate chemical inputs, but organic food is more prohibitive as farmers do not obtain significant crop productivity out of their land, while organic goods may have a price of up to 40% more (production expenses are steeper because farmers demand more labor force), marketing and distribution are not streamlined as organic products are delivered in diminished volumes, food disorders may occur more frequent, and chemical-free agriculture cannot produce sufficient nutrients that the world's population requires to live on.

The Nutritional Quality of Organic and Conventional Food Products Sold in Italy: Results from the Food Labelling of Italian Products (FLIP) Study

“…Conversely, the definition given by Council Regulation (EC) No 834/2007 [7] does not include any mention of possible differences in terms of the nutritional quality and healthiness of organic and conventional products. Despite this, evidence suggests that people tend to perceive organic foods as healthier than standard, non-organic foods [13][14][15], with healthiness primarily understood as nutritional value [16,17]. This is probably due to the so called "health halo effect", which induces the consumer to overestimate the healthfulness of a food with a specific attribute [18].…”

Impact of organic and “protected designation of origin” labels in the perception of olive oil sensory quality

“…However, also if food labelling is an important tool for consumer's perception of sustainability, the label of a product can lure or distance consumers. According to recent studies, Italian olive oil consumers seem to be positively affected by PDO and Organic labels (Di Vita et al, 2014;Vecchio et al, 2011), although other authors argue that there is a different influence of quality and sustainability labelling on the purchase intentions and sensory acceptance (de Andrade Silva et al, 2017;Lazaroiu et al, 2019;Bangsa et al, 2020) National and regional products with PDO certification are preferred mainly for their higher perceived quality and respondents' interest to support the domestic producers (Vel covsk a and Del Chiappa, 2015), while food products with EU organic logo are often considered of inferior quality or even a fraud (Delmas and Grant, 2014).…”

Well-Designed Food Governance as Psychological Mechanism of Consumer Perceptions in the Context of Tourism Poverty Alleviation

“…Organic food classification labeling not only distinguishes organically produced products to influence the growing consumer preference, but also provides additional income to dairy farms to play a role in organic food production (Liu and Zheng, 2019 ). Here, consumer trust and attitudes toward organic foods is a key support system for small and medium-scale dairy farmer recycling efforts (Lazaroiu et al, 2019 ). Importantly, the industry in China is responding to new and modern consumer interest in sustainable organically produced foods, which creates a value chain for organic fertilizer for the benefit of small-scale dairy producers.…”