Assessing Consumption Patterns of PGI Kato Neurokopi
Potatoes - Abstract
Elie Abou Nader 1,2, Christina Kleisiari 1, Stylianos Kartakis 1,2, Georgios Kleftodimos 1,2,
Ioannis Moutsinas 1,3, Evagelia Lampiri 1, George Vlontzos 1, Christos Athanassiou 1 and
Thanasis Korakis 3
1
  University of Thessaly, Department of Agriculture, Crop Production and Rural Environment, School of
Agricultural Sciences, Fitokou str., 38446, Volos, Greece
2
  University of Montpellier, Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Montpellier (CIHEAM-IAMM), 3191 Rte de
Mende, 34090, Montpellier, France
3
  University of Thessaly, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Argonafton & Filellinon, 38221,
Volos, Greece


                Summary
                Competitiveness in the field of fresh agricultural products is constantly increasing, driven by
                consumers’ increasing awareness on environmental protection and food safety. The
                cooperative producing Nevrokopi potato Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) product has
                realized this necessity, being determined to face it. For this reason, the IoPotato project, aims
                to develop and apply a precision farming protocol, focusing on crop protection and irrigation.
                Thus, a digital monitoring system has been set up, utilizing remote sensing technology,
                providing by this way the ability to develop a decision support tool for optimizing pest control
                and irrigation.
                This survey focuses on assessing consumer beliefs on the utility and acceptance of precision
                farming systems, focusing also on the aforementioned deliverable of this project. The main
                objective is to highlight factors related to the consumption of Kato Nevrokopi PGI potato, as
                well as their correlation with the participants’ socio-economic characteristics. Furthermore, it
                is evaluated the perspective to pay a premium or not for purchasing it when it is produced under
                a precision farming protocol.
                A three- part questionnaire was developed and distributed on a national level in Greece, based
                on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and Health Belief Model (HBM). The merged
                approach of these methodologies allowed us to clarify parameters preventing further increase
                of sales of Nevrokopi potato. Results showed a strong link, between locally produced products
                and PGI foods with application of successful environmental protection practices. Furthermore,
                consumers strongly believe that by using Nevrokopi potato, they support local economy and
                domestic development. It turns out that people with higher education as well as young
                consumers are more aware of the value of locally produced agricultural products, while they
                are very interested in adopting practices leading to the production of better quality and safe
                products. The realistic and sustainable improvement of the product’s value chain will
                substantially improve its image on both national and international level.

                Keywords 1
                Consumer behavior, Potatoes, PGI products, Principal Component Analysis, Agriculture




Proceedings of HAICTA 2022, September 22–25, 2022, Athens, Greece
EMAIL: elieabounader98@gmail.com (A. 1); chkleisiari@uth.gr (A. 2); stelios.kartakis@hotmail.com (A. 3);
giorgoskleftodimos@gmail.com (A. 4); moutsinasg@gmail.com (A. 5); elampiri@uth.gr (A. 6); gvlontzos@uth.gr (A. 7);
athanassiou@uth.gr (A. 8); korakis@uth.gr (A. 9)
ORCID: 0000-0002-0814-2842 (A. 1); 0000-0002-0814-2842 (A. 2); 0000-0003-2134-3582 (A. 4); 0000-0001-8693-6229 (A. 5); 0000-
0001-8142-0880 (A. 6); 0000-0002-0735-2274 (A. 7); 0000-0001-6578-4019 (A. 8); 0000-0003-0162-335X (A. 9)
             ©️ 2022 Copyright for this paper by its authors.
             Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
             CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-WS.org)




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Acknowledgements
This research is part of the project «IoPotato» (Project code: ΑΜΘΡ7-0073655) that is co-
funded by Greece and European Union by the Action «Investment Plans of Innovation» in
Central Macedonia under the framework of the Operational Program «Central Macedonia
2014-2020».




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