Consumer behaviour of urban and rural families in vegetables : a comparative analysis

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Date
2018
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Department of Agricultural Extension, College of Agriculture, Vellayani
Abstract
The study entitled "Consumer behaviour of urban and rural families in vegetables - A comparative analysis" was conducted in Kozhikode district. The objective focussed on comparative analysis of consumer behaviour of rural and urban families on vegetables, awareness of rural and urban families about organic vegetables and its outlets, knowledge and adoption of KAU recommended measures to remove pesticide residue in vegetables. The study comprised of 120 respondents who were selected randomly with 60 each from urban and rural area. The 48 respondents out of 60 were of mixed category and 12 were of vegetarian category. The profile and purchase related characteristics (independent variables) including age, gender, education level, average household monthly income, family size, health consciousness, periodicity of purchase, source of vegetables, nature of vegetables consumed, preferred vegetable category, average monthly expenditure on vegetables, proximity to outlet, and quantity of vegetables purchased per month were studied. The percentage analysis of these independent variables revealed that majority of respondents were under medium category. The consumer behaviour (dependent variable) was also studied. The consumer behaviour was analyzed based on the cumulative effect of consumer attitude, consumer preference, consumer decision making, and consumer intensions (store choice behaviour). Based on the analysis of data, it was found that majority (80.83%) of the consumers were having moderately favourable attitude towards vegetables. About 65 per cent were having medium preference for vegetables and a chi square analysis revealed that there was a dependence between consumer preference and their locality. More than 69.17 per cent of respondents were moderately favourable decision makers in the purchase of vegetables and a chi square analysis revealed that there was a dependence between consumer decision making and their locality. Majority (77.50%) of them were having medium intentions to purchase from an outlet and a chi square analysis revealed that there was no dependence between consumer intensions and their locality. The majority of respondents (77.50%) were exhibiting moderately favourable consumer behaviour towards vegetables. The student‟s t test was performed for the comparative analysis of consumer behaviour for different combinations of consumers. The results revealed that there was a significant difference between urban and rural consumers, rural mixed and rural vegetarian, urban mixed and urban vegetarian, urban vegetarian and rural vegetarian, mixed consumer of 2 rural panchayats, male and female consumers and there was no significant difference between urban mixed and rural mixed, and mixed consumers of 2 urban wards. The awareness of rural and urban families about organic vegetables and their outlet were analyzed and found that majority (70%) of them were of medium category. Most of them have received awareness regularly from friends and relatives(57.50%), occasionally from newspaper(60.83%), and never(70.83%) from magazines. The knowledge and adoption of consumers on KAU recommended practices to remove pesticide residue was studied and it was observed that most of them were having medium knowledge (84.17%) and followed medium adoption (40.83%). Other practices adopted by respondents to remove pesticide residue in vegetables were tap water washing followed by cooking, and dipping in sodium chloride solution. The correlation between consumer behaviour and 10 independent variables revealed that three of the variables i.e age, education level, proximity to outlet had positive and significant correlation and two of variables i.e average household monthly income and average monthly expenditure on vegetables had negative and significant correlation with consumer behaviour. The suggestions identified for creating awareness about safe food habits among the consumers were: The social media should promote organic outlets for vegetables through advertisements, mass media awareness should be promoted by competent authorities to purchase vegetables from small and marginal farmers rather than profit oriented outlets considering their freshness and less pesticide residue. The department of agricultural development and farmer‟s welfare can impart training to people in residential areas regarding the harmful effects of consuming contaminated vegetables and measures to remove the pesticide residues in vegetables. The department can also provide training to people to cultivate vegetables in homesteads like terrace cultivation with eco-friendly practices. The study revealed that majority of the respondents were showing moderately favourable behaviour towards vegetables. There was a significant difference between the consumer behaviour of rural and urban consumers. The prime reason could be the socio-economic and cultural differences in urban area and rural area. The knowledge and adoption of consumers on KAU recommended practices to remove pesticide residue had fallen under medium category. All these findings demand a need for creating awareness in society regarding the use of safe food and promotion of organic vegetables.
Description
PG
Keywords
Citation
174418
Collections