چكيده لاتين :
Introduction: With increasing population, agricultural activities should provide enough food for 80 billion
people around the world until 2030. Many farmers are dependent on chemical technologies for pest management
and producing enough food. However, despite the many benefits, it is indicated that, chemicals and pesticides,
may have bad consequences for the health of human being and environment. Hence, due to the response to
concerns about common agricultural activities, the interest in organic products has been increased around the
world. Increasing health problems and diseases associated with food products has made consumers to give more
importance to buying these products. One of the people's reactions has been moving forward to using organic
agricultural products. Many researchers, have proved that, organic products, are safer and better for people's
health and unhealthy products are a threat for society. For instance, in developing countries, 5 million children
under age of 5 are afflicted to illness symptoms caused by poisonous and chemical residues in food, and more
than 3 million people die and in 2010 the World Health Organization has declared that; Iran, ranked 93rd out of
160 countries in the world for bad consequences of agriculture. Organic products have characteristics such as
taste, health, and issues related to environment and animals' right, which are not tangible in the first sight. In
some cases, when consuming or buying, consumers hardly understand these features. For success and
development of organic products these features should be understood by consumers and they should be willing
to pay for these products. Organic agricultural products have higher prices for several reasons (such as
production conditions and issuing the certificate). Economically, the value of a product is equal to the sum of
payments for that product, in addition to the consumers' welfare. Surplus consumer welfare is defined as the
difference between the consumer's willingness to pay and the real price paid for it. In this regard the notion of
willingness to pay can be defined as the total payment that reflects the difference between the surplus consumer
welfare before and after adding or improving one characteristic of food. Many consumers are looking for food
safety and they have tendency to pay more for healthy food products, because it simultaneously increases the
level of utility and reduces the risks for health. A review of research literature on willingness to pay for organic
agricultural products shows that most studies have been conditional on the costs of organic agricultural products
and estimation of willingness to pay for them by methods such as valuation and less attention have been paid to
the reasons that make consumers to pay for these products. Hence, it seems that an exploratory study for
identifying and prioritizing factors affecting the willingness to pay for organic agricultural products has a great
importance. Therefore, the purpose of present study is identification and prioritization of factors affecting the
willingness to pay for organic agricultural products.
Materials and Methods: This research in terms of purpose is applied and in terms of research method, is
descriptive-survey. The statistical population of the study included all consumers of organic agricultural products
of Bioneshan shops in Tehran, who have been using these products at the time of collecting the research data on
November 2018. To determine the sample size, Comrey and Lee patterns were used, and 384 samples were
selected by sampling method. Analyzing the research data was done by SPSS and EXCEL software.
Results and Discussion: Before conducting an exploratory factor analysis, in order to identify factors
affecting willingness to pay for organic agricultural products, and in order to ensure that existing data can be
used and the number of data is appropriate for factor analysis and the adequacy of exploratory Kaiser-MeyerOlkin sample size, Bartlett test was used. In the next step, for exploratory factor analysis, research data were
analyzed by using main components analysis method and the choice of varimax rotation method. The results of
exploratory factor analysis show that, factors affecting willingness to pay for organic agricultural products
consist of seven elements or dimensions. These include the quality of products, perceived benefits, income
levels, information barriers and access to products, environmental concerns, life styles and food safety. These seven identified factors totally define 68/123% variance of affecting factors on willingness to pay for organic
agricultural products. In order to prioritize the factors affecting the willingness to pay for organic agricultural
products Shannon entropy was used. According to respondents, food safety is ranked first in terms of its
importance.
Conclusion: The first identified factor is the quality of the products which corresponds with the studies of
Krystallis and Chryssohoidis (2005) and Villanueva and colleagues (2015). One of the factors that causes the
consumer to focus on a product, is the quality of that product. Organic agricultural products are not exceptions to
this fact and more than being organic, their quality should be considered as well. The fact that products should be
both organic and have a high quality, is difficult due to the lack of chemical and artificial compounds. The
second identified factor is perceived benefits, which correspond with the studies of Van doorn and verhoef
(2011) and Zaho and colleagues (2018). Consumers consider some benefits for themselves of using each
product. In order to enhance the willingness to pay for organic agricultural products, People who are active in
agricultural activities, should try to increase the level of perceived benefits in consumers. The third identified
factor is income level which corresponds with the studies of Nandy and colleagues (2017) and Vapa-Tankosic
and colleagues (2018). One of the obstacles to the expansion of organic agricultural products is people's low
income level and higher prices of organic agricultural products. The forth identified factor is information barriers
and access to products which corresponds with the studies of Nandy and colleagues (2017) and Sriwaranun and
colleagues (2015). Lack of information about organic agricultural products and inadequate supply and
availability affects the willingness to pay for them. By increasing information about the benefits of these
products the interest in paying for these products will be increased. So when the supply and access to these
products can easily happen, and people have access to these products in different stores, the desire to use and pay
for this products increases and with increasing supply, the price of these products reduces. The fifth identified
factor is environmental concerns, which corresponds to the studies of Nandy and colleagues (2017) and konuk
and colleagues (2018). Many people by understanding that organic agricultural products entail less harm to the
living environment, are satisfied with paying more for these products. The sixth identified factor is lifestyle,
which corresponds to the studies of Skreli and colleague (2017). People who primarily establish a healthy
lifestyle for themselves, and care about their health more, have willing to pay for organic agricultural products as
a healthy product. The seventh identified factor is food safety which corresponds with the studies of Budak and
colleagues (2006) and Chen and colleagues (2015). According to food respondents, food safety has the top
priority. Consumers should be certain about the organic state of the products and their health in order to have
desire to pay for them.
