Barriers To the Adoption of Organic Food Products: A Consumer Perspective

Abstract

The growing concern for health, food safety and environmental sustainability has increased consumer interest in organic food products. However, despite increasing awareness of organic food and its benefits, the actual adoption and regular purchase of organic products remain limited. The present study, entitled “Barriers to the Adoption of Organic Food Products: A Consumer Perspective,” aims to assess the level of consumer awareness regarding organic food products and identify the major barriers influencing their adoption. The study is based on both primary and secondary data. Primary data were collected through a structured questionnaire from 100 respondents, while secondary data were collected from journals, websites, magazines and other relevant sources. The collected data were analysed The findings reveal that consumers have a high level of awareness, with an overall mean score of 3.77. Awareness of health benefits recorded the highest mean score of 4.12, The Friedman test revealed a significant difference among the barriers, with a Chi-square value of 68.542 and a p-value of 0.000. Price-related barriers ranked first with a mean rank of 4.82, followed by availability and accessibility barriers (4.35) and awareness and knowledge barriers (3.91). The study concludes that price, availability and consumer knowledge are the major obstacles to the adoption of organic food products. Therefore, competitive pricing, improved availability, consumer awareness programmes and reliable certification and labelling are essential to encourage wider adoption of organic food products.