Consumers of Texas Alternative Agriculture: A Brief Study of Preferences and Beliefs

In recent years, consumers have become increasingly concerned about how food is produced that parallels the increase of smaller farms with particular production methods, which is termed alternative production.  The survey presented questions about preferences on aspects of alternative and conventional agricultural products in an attempt to better understand the Texas consumer and trends in demand of such products.  The objectives were to determine how consumer beliefs affect purchasing choices and ascertain the viability of substitution of marketing “local” for “organic” marketing in terms of input costs and labor with similar output costs.  Data collection was a Google Form based survey directed towards consumers of Texas agricultural products that was sent to approximately 250 individuals via email who had elected to receive such emails and through an email newsletter managed by Texas Department of Agriculture sent to approximately 20,000 Texas residents. Google Forms present the data in aggregate form in a spread sheet without personal identification information. The survey was open from 15 June 2015 through 31 July 2015. Participants tended to be well-educated females between the ages of 26 and 55 with annual household incomes in excess of $50,000.  There were differences between consumers that prefer local foods and consumers that prefer organic foods in regards to beliefs about health, safety, sustainability and what is best for the environment, as well as differences in demographics.  The definition of ‘local’ was more likely to be within 50 or 150 miles of purchase for those who preferred organic whereas the definition was more likely to be within the state of Texas for those that preferred local. However, there was no difference between these two groups in regards to willingness to pay more for the preferred labeled foods.  Both were willing to pay up to $2.39 more per pound for steak, and up to $1.00 more per pound for tomatoes under their preferred label. These results suggest that it would be beneficial to concentrate marketing efforts on the target sector, and that producers wanting to secure the higher sales price held by organic-labelled products without the increased input costs may substitute a local-grown marketing scheme.  Results also suggest that consumers are willing and capable of voting with their food dollar for the production methods they prefer.