Ninth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

Various factors influence the adoption of organic farming. These motivations can be divided into four categories: economic, environmental, socio-cultural, and government factors. We conducted a fuzzy analytical hierarchical process (FAHP) analysis to rank the importance of these factors to Taiwanese farmers.We also investigated the relationship between farm characteristics of organic farmers and the four determinant factors as well as the behavioral intention of farmers (in terms of their intentions to support, continue, or recommend organic farming). Lastly, we conducted an importance-performance analysis (IPA). Our FAHP results suggested that (in terms of weighted rank) farmers’ valued the four factors in the following descending order of significance: environment (0.2891), economic (0.2834), government (0.238), and sociocultural (0.189). Furthermore, our ANOVA analysis revealed that farmers with easy access to loans were more likely to be influenced by economic, F(5, 96) = 2.397, P = 0.032, and sociocultural, F(5, 96) = 2.159, P = 0.065, factors. Lastly, multiple regression analysis showed that sociocultural (β = - 0.194, t = 2.113, P < 0.05) and government factors (β = 0.491, t = 5.0297, P < 0.000) had significant and positive effects on the behavioral intentions of organic farmers. In terms of IPA, the results suggested that farmers perceived economic and environment factors as high importance and low performance factors, while they perceived sociocultural factors as high performance and low importance factors. The results of this study help to shed light on the complex motivations of organic farmers in Taiwan.