• Korean Journal of Organic Agriculture
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.171-187
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• 2013

The environment-friendly agricultural product market receives consumers' great interests despite relatively few studies focused on consumers' decision making process of the environment-friendly agricultural products. This paper examines what factors influence on consumers' attitude and buying behavior on the environment-friendly agricultural product. In order to find the relative importance of each factor's influence, this study adopts multiple regression method based on the survey results of 500 people with the systematic random sampling. The results showed that consumers' favorable attitude towards the environment-friendly agricultural product were influenced by taste, freshness, food safety, and positive attitudes toward the environment-friendly agricultural product promotion. In addition, consumers' purchase intention was influenced by taste, food safety, environmental concern, and the promotion. Respondents recommend the environment-friendly agricultural product when they believe that the environment-friendly agricultural product had the values of taste, environmental concern, and promotion. Women are more active in buying and recommending the environment-friendly agricultural product; however, the price was not the statistically meaning factor. This study provides empirical data that was used for marketing and increasing the sales of the environment-friendly agricultural product. Future research was advised to examine more thoroughly on the relationships between the promotion efforts and purchase intention and the occasions when the price becomes the issue in the buying decision of the environment-friendly agricultural product.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.45-53
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• 2013

Purpose - The environment-friendly agricultural product market in Korea sees continual high growth. Recently, the Korean government has been actively fostering environment-friendly agriculture as an engine of future growth. Korean people have increasingly become more health-conscious and interested in food safety issues. Many distribution and retailing companies have responded with various promotional activities. However, most of these are not strategic and appear to have unsatisfactory outcomes. The main purpose of this paper is to suggest effective marketing strategies for environment-friendly agricultural products. To achieve this aim, the study empirically investigates the effects of consumer characteristics and trust on the purchase intention of environment-friendly agricultural products. Research design, data, methodology - Based on the theory of planned behavior, and previous studies related to the purchase intention and consumption of environment-friendly agricultural products, we set up five study hypotheses. These related to the demographic characteristics of consumers, purchase intention, and behavior of the products. We then set up a study model and four study hypotheses relating to health consciousness, environmental consciousness, consumer trust level, purchase intention, and behavior of the products. The data were collected using a questionnaire given to consumers living in Seoul and southern Geonggi Province. The final sample size is 403 and mean age is 44.3. SPSS 15.0 for Windows and Amos 7.0 were used as statistical analysis tools. Meaningful results were derived using frequency analysis, correlation analysis, a t-test, and structural equation modeling. Results - Empirical results of this research are as follows. (1) First, it is shown that consumers consider such attributes as intimacy and health to be important when they buy environment-friendly agricultural products. (2) We also found that consumers recognize the value of environment-friendly agricultural products as high, but their trust level as low. (3) Consumer groups consisting of married couples, with higher education, higher income, and higher age are shown to have a higher intention of buying environment-friendly agricultural products than any other consumer group. (4) It is estimated that the level of consumer trust positively affects the purchase intention of environment-friendly agricultural products. The path coefficient (.138) between consumer trust and purchase intention is statistically significant at the α = .05 level. (5). It is also estimated that environmental consciousness positively affects purchase intention. The path coefficient (.245) between environmental consciousness and purchase intention is statistically significant at the α = 0.05 level. The standardized path coefficients of consumer trust and environmental consciousness with purchase intention are .556 and .288 respectively. Therefore, consumer trust affects purchase intention more than environmental consciousness. (6) Finally, purchase intention is estimated to positively affect purchase behavior. Conclusions - Based upon empirical results, this research suggests that marketers of environment-friendly agricultural products should focus more on increasing consumer trust levels, emphasizing the training and education of employees. The government also should pay attention to a standardized certification system for environment-friendly agricultural products. Marketers of environment-friendly agricultural products should consider the consumer groups of married couples, with higher education, higher income, and higher age as a major target segment.

• Korean Journal of Organic Agriculture
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.185-206
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• 2015

This study aims to prepare a solution necessary for boosting the consumption of environment-friendly agricultural products, positively reflecting consumers' opinions that expect supplies of safe agricultural products to secure the domestic farms producing environment-friendly agricultural products and at the same time, to meet consumers' needs. As a result of the hypothesis testing, of the subjective knowledge in Hypothesis 1, product knowledge had an impact on attitude, while purchase knowledge and use knowledge after purchase were not significant. Of the subjective knowledge in Hypothesis 2, purchase knowledge and product knowledge had significant impacts on purchase intention. Brand image in Hypothesis 3 had a significant impact on attitude, while brand image in Hypothesis 4 had a significant impact on purchase intention. As a result of the mediated regression analysis of Hypothesis 5, all of the subjective knowledge, purchase knowledge, product knowledge and use knowledge after purchase had an impact on purchase intention, partially mediated by attitude, and brand image, too, had an impact on purchase intention, partially mediated by attitude.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.459-467
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• 2016

In Korea, the market size for environment-friendly agricultural products has reached a plateau, even though many Korean consumers still show a high level of preference for environment-friendly agricultural products. In order to solve this problem, some Korean farmers and marketers are starting to try to export their products to many countries, including China. China, in particular, is becoming one of the fastest rising market for Korean environment-friendly agricultural products, after the signing of the Free Trade Agreement with China. However, little research has been done or reported about the purchase behaviors of Chinese consumers. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the environment-friendly agricultural product purchase behavior (especially, mandarin orange and muskmelon) of consumers in the Chinese market and to present some useful implications for Korean farmers and marketers. Through survey in China (especially, Beijing and Shanghai) and frequency analysis, this study made the following findings: first, Chinese consumers show a very strong concern for environment-friendly agricultural products. Second, many Chinese consumers usually buy environment-friendly agricultural products more than two times per month. Third, Chinese consumers give more value to freshness and food-safety than taste when they make decisions on buying environment-friendly mandarin orange and muskmelon. These can have some implications for the exportation of environment-friendly agricultural products.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.11 no.12
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• pp.71-81
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• 2013

Purpose - This study investigated the effects of consumers' selection criteria for environment-friendly agricultural products on purchase intention and the effects of consumers' attitudes and the reliability of environment-friendly agricultural products on purchase intention by using the theory of planned behavior. Subjective norms of variables of behavioral intention, attitudes toward behavior and control of the behavior were used to create selection criteria, consumers' attitudes and reliability of environment-friendly agricultural products. The study investigated the effects of consumers' selection criteria, attitudes, and reliability of environment-friendly agricultural products on purchase intention constructing models and hypotheses of mediation and moderation between selection criteria for agricultural products and purchase intention by consumers' attitudes and reliability. Research design, data, and methodology - The findings were as follows: first, consumers' selection criteria for environment-friendly agricultural products had a significantly affirmative influence upon purchase intention. Health was the most important factor of selection criteria convenience was more important than quality and familiarity was next. Consumers' attitudes and trust had a significant influence on purchase intention. Second, testing showed that consumers' attitude and trust partially mediated selection criteria: sub-factors and purchase intention were important in selection criteria. Third, testing showed that consumers' attitude and trust had a significant moderation effect between selection criteria and purchase intention. In the test of the moderation effect between sub-factors of selection criteria and purchase intention, consumers' attitude had a significantly positive influence upon health, convenience, and familiarity, and had no significant influence upon quality and purchase intention. Consumers' trust had no significant influence upon health, convenience, and quality. Results - The study provided several theoretical implications: first, an empirical analysis was undertaken with selection criteria for environmental-friendly agricultural products, consumers' attitude, and trust to investigate subjective norms, attitude toward behavior and control of behavior based on the theory of planned behavior. Second, this study investigated both the mediation effect and moderation effect of consumers' subjective norms on attitudes toward behavior, the mediating effects of perceived behavior control and changes of behavioral intention depending upon size and direction of the variables. This study also provided several practical implications. Conclusions - First, consumption of environment-friendly agricultural products did not increase despite rapid increase of production therefore, promotion of consumption and distribution was needed considering the supply and demand of the products. Second, definite standards for selection criteria were suggested to build up consumers' attitude and trust. Consumers' attitude could be improved by factors including the brand of environment-friendly agricultural products, consistent quality, solving physiological problems caused by adverse effects of environmental problems, supplementary approaches, treatment of adverse effects by eating food, and the development and supply of products in accordance with changes of lifestyle. Finally, consumers' demand for sub-factors of selection criteria could be much higher than health, convenience, and quality of the products. Therefore, a process was needed that could continuously check consumers' needs for the products. Limitations were described at the end of the study.

• East Asian Journal of Business Economics (EAJBE)
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.1-19
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• 2020

Purpose - This study is to classify quality characteristics of online environment-friendly agricultural products shopping malls into 6 categories and to empirically test their relationship with customer trust, perceived manageability, perceived utility and purchase intention. Research design, data, and methodology - This study targeted adults who have purchased ecofriendly agricultural production online malls for 4 weeks from September 3 to September 30, 2019. The survey type used was a structuralized self-report survey questionnaire made to meet the research purpose in 2019 as the time range. Out of 800 questionnaires, 500 copies are used after excluding surveys with insincere responses. Results - First, results to hypothesis 1, which was about independent variables and customer trust. Analysis showed that health, familiarity, platform reputation, reviews and product quality were found to have significant effect on customer trust; the hypothesis was adopted. On the other hand, system security did not affect customer trust significantly; it was rejected. Second, customer trust was shown to have significant effect on perceived manageability and perceived utility, so the hypothesis was adopted. Third, the hypothesis that perceived manageability moves onto perceived utility was adopted. Moreover, the hypothesis that perceived manageability moves onto purchase intention and the hypothesis that perceived utility moves onto purchase intention were adopted as well. Conclusions - Furthermore, the results of the study imply that it's imperative for online environment-friendly agricultural products shopping malls to consider their characteristics as the means to increase purchase intention of customers.

• Journal of Agricultural Extension & Community Development
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.57-65
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• 2024

This study was designed to find out consumers' behavior towards eco-friendly processed foods and to investigate the relationship between consumers' purchase intention of eco-friendly and organic processed foods, depending on the country of origin. Five hundred consumers were taken from all over the country for an empirical analysis. The results indicate that consumers' satisfaction with a certificate system of eco-friendly products is relatively high. In addition, it is found that consumers give more credit to the safety of domestic organic foods than imported organic foods. The study implies that consumers perceiving the importance of the country of origin are more likely to buy domestic organic foods. Furthermore, the importance of the country of origin and age have a positive relationship with the purchase intention of domestic organic foods.

• Korean Journal of Organic Agriculture
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.29-44
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• 2023

The activation of consumption of environment-friendly agricultural processed foods means not only the growth of environment-friendly agriculture, but also the development of related industries. Therefore, it is necessary to identify and apply the needs and purchasing attributes of environment-friendly agricultural processed food consumers. For this, survey was conducted to adult men and women in their 20s and 60s and a total of 200 copies were used for empirical analysis. In this study, the average difference between importance-satisfaction for purchase attributes of environment-friendly agricultural processed food was verified, and the IPA Matrix was prepared based on this. As a result, in terms of purchasing importance and satisfaction, it was found that those with no experience in purchasing environment-friendly agricultural processed foods regarded product, price, place, promotion as more important than those with experience in purchasing. In case of IPA, product and price factors were all important and satisfactory regardless of purchasing experience. On the other hand, it was found that the key factors for promotion were neither important nor satisfied with consumers regardless of their purchasing experience. Therefore, it is mainly necessary to focus on marketing and mass media promotion. At the same time, various domestic and foreign best practices should be benchmarked and a 4P marketing strategy should be established and promoted.

• Journal of Agricultural Extension & Community Development
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.117-147
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• 2007

The main goal of this study is to survey the actual condition of farm household adopt traceability of agricultural products and the consumers' recognition of the traceability. Thirty six farm household adopted traceability of agricultural products and one hundred twenty three consumers were surveyed for this study. A total of the cultivated area of surveyed farm household was 39.6ha－owned land(21.2ha) and Rented land(18.4ha)－and the cultivated area of crops with the traceability of agricultural product was 15.7ha, consisting of 39.6% of the whole cultivated area. 22.2% of agricultural traceability products was cultivated bychemical method and 77.8% of the them by environment－friendly agricultural methods－organic cultivation accounts for 2.8%, no－chemicals cultivation 47.2% and low－chemicals cultivation 27.8%. As a result of the consumer survey, 75.6% of respondents recognized agricultural product traceability and only 29.0% of them had experience to purchase traceability products. But 61.0% of surveyed people had intention to purchase traceability products in the future. It was found that consumers wanted to know about production traceability information of farm products in order to identify quality certification including environment－friendly certification, product quality such as taste, weight, grade, and the use of insecticides and fertilizers regarding use frequency and kinds of chemicals.

• Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.83-91
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• 2022

The goal of this study is to promote the spread of environmentally friendly agricultural products, which have been receiving a lot of attention lately, as a way to improve food safety and quality. As a result of the increased labor input, increased production costs, and an aging population, environmentally friendly agriculture is making it more difficult for farmers to expand their enterprises. In the meantime, consumers find it difficult to spread eco-friendly agricultural products due to their high expectations for safety and quality, as well as the desire to purchase products at a reasonable price. Previous studies have revealed differences in perceptions between eco-friendly agricultural producers and consumers. In light of this, this study divided consumers based on their characteristics (such as age, purchase history, health concerns, etc.), and different policies were proposed in order to increase purchasing factors for each group based on their characteristics. In order to gather information for this study, general citizens were asked about their perceptions of eco-friendly agricultural products, future purchase intentions and awareness, reliability, necessity, purpose, and information sources. A two-step clustering analysis was conducted using nominal and continuous variables simultaneously. The paper presents the three derived group differences (senior organic interest group, middle-aged organic interest group, and indifferent young organics) as well as group differences for the purchasing/non-purchasing factor analysis and policy improvement for each group. An eco-friendly agricultural product distribution proposal was made at the end of this article.