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Determinants of Participation in AFNs and Its Value for Consumers

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Alternative Food Networks

Abstract

In this chapter Corsi and Novelli discuss consumers’ motivations for participating in AFNs. Some consumers are self-interested and look for healthier food, lower prices, better quality, and food freshness and taste. Others have social, political, and environmental concerns. Lastly, personal relationships can count in the decision to join AFNs. These motivations can coexist in the same consumers and have different strength. This chapter discusses the relevant literature and presents the results of three empirical investigations assessing and quantifying the strength of consumers’ commitment to the AFNs. The first analyses the determinants of consumers’ choice to buy from farmers’ stands in urban district markets. The second estimates consumers’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) to buy from farmers. The third estimates Solidarity Purchase Groups members’ WTP for participating in their group.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Martinez et al. (2010) present the main characteristics of local food chains in the USA and add a review of papers dealing with characteristics and attitudes associated with local food purchase and willingness to purchase and with consumer characteristics associated with willingness to pay more for local foods.

  2. 2.

    With regard to the district markets, convenience was identified as an attitude if consumers’ stated reasons for choosing a market were “Closeness to home”, “Closeness to workplace, to school, to places where their relatives live”, and “Location on the way between home and workplace”. Price attitude corresponded to the answer “Reasonable prices”. Quality attitude was identified by the answers “Product quality”, “Wide choice”, and “Pleasant ambience”. Attitudes towards the choice of stands were Convenience (“Location of the stands in the market”), Price (“Reasonable prices”, “Quality/price ratio”), Quality (“Product quality”, “Freshness”, “Supply of local products”, “Region of provenance of products”), and Trust in the vendor (“Personal acquaintance with the vendor”). Respondents could indicate up to three items.

  3. 3.

    Since in these statistical models (probit) the marginal effect of the variables on the probability of the outcome varies according to the value of the variable itself and of the other variables, the change in probability is as usual calculated at the mean values of the variables.

  4. 4.

    Relational goods are discussed in Chap. 2 of this book.

  5. 5.

    The exact wording was: “Think of farmers’ stands, in particular of the stand where you most frequently buy fruit and vegetables, and think of the farmer who usually helps you and with whom you talk while buying. Now imagine that tomorrow another farmer opens a stand in this market and offers produce that is exactly the same as the produce you buy from your regular vendor: same territorial provenance, same quality guarantee, and same freshness. The only differences would be the vendor and the price. If the new vendor’s price were X% lower than your usual vendor’s price, and you wanted to buy the same quantity, from whom would you buy? Consider, for instance, that something costing 10 euros from your usual vendor would cost X euros at the new stand.”

  6. 6.

    Respondents were assigned up to 5 points if they made purchases for their household, depending on the frequency (less than 6 times/year; every second month; every month; every 15 days; every week); up to 5 points if they also made purchases for other households; up to 5 points if they collected products from the farmers and distributed them to the other members; 5 points if they prepared the mailing list, the website, and so on; 5 points if they managed the relationship with the producers; 5 points if they handled contacts with participants and collected orders; 5 points if they were members of the SPG board; and 1 point if they participated in the SPG assembly and social initiatives. The points are obviously arbitrary, but they attempt to reflect the time devoted to each activity and, hence, the commitment to the SPG, since members are not paid for these activities.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics and Statistics “Cognetti de Martiis”, University of Torino, Torino, Italy

    Alessandro Corsi

  2. Department of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences, University of Torino, Grugliasco (TO), Italy

    Silvia Novelli

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  1. Alessandro Corsi
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  2. Silvia Novelli
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Correspondence to Alessandro Corsi .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics and Statistics “Cognetti de Martiis”, University of Torino, Torino, Italy

    Alessandro Corsi

  2. Department of Cultures, Politics and Society, University of Torino, Torino, Italy

    Filippo Barbera

  3. Department of Cultures, Politics and Society, University of Torino, Torino, Italy

    Egidio Dansero

  4. Department of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences, University of Torino, Grugliasco (TO), Italy

    Cristiana Peano

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Corsi, A., Novelli, S. (2018). Determinants of Participation in AFNs and Its Value for Consumers. In: Corsi, A., Barbera, F., Dansero, E., Peano, C. (eds) Alternative Food Networks. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90409-2_4

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