An Environmental Perspective On The Organic Food Market In Turkey

Abstract

Alternative systems to the conventional agricultural system have been sought to solve problems such as environmental pollution, reduction and degradation of domestic seed species, soil erosion, reduction of animal welfare. Organic agriculture and food market constitute one of the most important alternative systems to conventional agriculture. The purpose of our study is to look into the demand for organic food in Turkey from an environmental perspective in order to understand whether organic consumption is driven by environmental friendliness and consciousness. Socio-demographic factors, attitudes and habits and contextual factors regarding environment and food consumption are analyzed together with organic food consumption patterns in order to search for the relationship of environmental consciousness on the demand side. A consumer questionnaire including questions about attitudes and habits and contextual factors regarding environment and food consumption has been designed and conducted to 251 organic food consumers living in Istanbul. Our results show that frequent organic food consumers may properly differ organic food products from other products such as GMO containing and ionized food products, strongly believe that there is a difference between organic products that are produced in Turkey and abroad in terms of quality. They are anxious about the environmental degradation and concerned about scarcity of resources, but they do not have adequate knowledge on environmental issues and sustainability.