Demand for organic food products in the urban areas of the Batticaloa district, Sri Lanka

Abstract

This paper presents the general trends of demand of organic food products in Batticaloa district, Sri Lanka. Nowadays the demand and production for organic food products are increased rapidly. Further, the organic production is an environmental friendly farming system that aims at high-quality products and the farming practices that do not harm the environment or human. Therefore, a well designed questionnaire was developed to collect the data regarding the consumer awareness over the organic food products, marketing and demand in addition to the particular's personal information. Primary data were collected from the public of the Batticaloa District by means of a questionnaire survey among randomly selected 150 households during the period of February to April, 2015. And also, this study was aimed to obtain an outline of the marketing of organic food product and its industries with the concern of demand, production and marketing of organic foods in Batticaloa District, Sri Lanka. Results revealed that the higher numbers of the respondents (70%) are interested to consume organic food produces and 48.2% of them believe that the market supply with the various products from organic agriculture is really at low level. Around, 44.7% of them realize that the supply is not satisfactory, while at the same time, only 7% believe that the assortment is on a satisfactory level. Major issues faced by the organic industry located in Batticaloa District were discussed. Further, the areas of organic farming, marketing problems and price dtermination were recognized for further and future studies for the enhancement of fulfilling consumers' demand and to eliminate the situation which highly influence on consumers' perception. And also, the current study discusses the opportunities for further development of the organic food production and marketing in Batticaloa District, Sri Lanka.