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Going Local: Exploring Consumer Behavior and Motivations for Direct Food Purchases
Author(s) -
Thilmany Dawn,
Bond Craig A.,
Bond Jennifer K.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
american journal of agricultural economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.949
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1467-8276
pISSN - 0002-9092
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8276.2008.01221.x
Subject(s) - session (web analytics) , agricultural experiment station , state (computer science) , bond , resource (disambiguation) , citation , agriculture , principal (computer security) , library science , political science , agricultural economics , management , economics , business , geography , finance , archaeology , computer science , advertising , algorithm , computer network , operating system
Perhaps the greatest evidence of momentum in the local food movement is the recognition of “Locavores” as the 2007 word of the year by the New Oxford American Dictionary. Defined as “a local resident who tries to eat only food grown or produced within a 100-mile radius,” the term identifies the growing ranks of environmentally and edibility-conscious consumers who deliberately seek out locally produced food and beverages. Moreover, the market has witnessed considerable growth in the numbers of farmers using direct marketing strategies, a doubling of U.S. farmers’ markets over the past decade, and strong growth in Community Supported Agriculture organizations (CSAs), in which shareholders directly pay farmers for a proportion of output (USDA Ag Census 2002; USDA AMS 2008; Lass et al. 2003). Furthermore, national media outlets, including Time, have dubbed “Local the New Organic” (Cloud 2007). However, despite the apparent growth in demand for local foods, there has been a paucity of research results regarding the motivation of consumers to seek out and pay a premium for local produce offerings, the role of direct markets in consumer shopping choices, and buying profiles of consumers who frequent direct channels (Brown 2002; Zepeda and Li 2006). In this article, we summarize much of the authors’ research on preferences of direct consumers of fresh produce in the context of a theoretical model regarding product and source choice. A particular focus is how local source and product attribution may connect with perceived private and public good dimensions