Consumer perception of the contributions of biodynamic agriculture to sustainability and biodiversity conservation: Insights from the United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore and Germany
Abstract
Environmental and biodiversity crises are upon us, and changes are urgently needed in global food production and supply chains. The present research, which is based on a paper currently undergoing peer review, delivers consumer insights about biodynamic (BD) agriculture which has the potential to advance sustainability efforts while also improving social sustainability. Using survey research, a multi-method and multi-national study was conducted with consumers in the United Kingdom (UK), Australia, Singapore, and Germany. Across 1237 participants, the empirical findings pointed to largely positive attitudes about BD agriculture. Between-country differences were minor, whereas consumer segmentation identified pan-national groups of people with attitudes that were, respectively, BD Positive (71%), BD Neutral (20%) or BD Negative (9%). In the BD Positive segment, consumers responded positively to the environmental and social aspects of BD agriculture, and it mattered to them that BD agriculture was a balanced and integrated approach to farming / food production. That is, they were not averse to the holistic/spiritual aspects that are unique to BD. Biodiversity, but also other aspects of environmental sustainability mattered more to consumers than social sustainability, notably worker welfare and community resilience. The research provides new consumer insights about biodynamics by being generic to BD agriculture rather than product specific (e.g., BD wine), and advances extant consumer research by jointly exploring environmental and social sustainability. Scale-free methods suitable for cross-cultural research were used, notably text highlighting and a variant of best-worst scaling. The former was recently introduced as an approach for direct attitude measurement.
Keywords
Sustainability Biodiversity Biodynamic agriculture Food production Consumer research Cross-cultural study
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