Funding: International Visegrad Fund

Coordinator: University of Life Sciences in Lublin (Poland)

Time period: October 2023. – April 2025.

Consortium partners: The project involves 6 partners from 4 countries working in close cooperation.

The aim of the project is to identify and compare the characteristics of organic food consumers, their purchasing decisions and behaviors in the region of the Visegrad Group countries. Project consortium, including the University of Life Sciences in Lublin, Poznan University of Life Sciences (Poland), College of Polytechnics Jihlava, Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague (Czech Republic), University of Economics in Bratislava (Slovakia) and Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (Hungary), will perform joint research, presentation of the results obtained and the exchange of knowledge in the form of open lectures.

The project will provide support to the organic food market in the region by collecting, disseminating and presenting the results obtained on the consumption of organic food products among V4 consumers.

Organic farming has many environmental, economic and social benefits and is therefore a key element of sustainable rural development. The UN Sustainable Development Goals and the European Green Deal targets give a high priority to the consumption of organic products. The conditions in the V4 countries are favourable for the development of environmentally friendly production methods and the demand for organic food is growing. It is therefore necessary to identify and monitor consumer attitudes, purchasing decisions and behaviour towards organic food and the barriers to buying organic food, in particular in the light of the changes in consumer habits caused by the COVID-19 epidemic and the crisis situation caused by the war in Ukraine. The organic food market in the V4 countries operates under relatively similar economic and social conditions, therefore it will be important to identify similarities and differences in this area and to develop recommendations in this context. To this end, it is essential to study consumption in order to identify tools and solutions to stimulate the demand for organic food and, consequently, the development of organic farms that support the protection of the natural environment. It is important that consumers, especially young people new to the market, are aware of the benefits of consuming organic food and the environmental impact of their consumption choices.

The project is co-financed by the Governments of Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia through Visegrad Grants from International Visegrad Fund. The mission of the fund is to advance ideas for sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe.

Project activities will include:

  • joint scientific research (to describe consumer behaviour in the V4 organic food market);
  • sharing research results from V4 countries among consortium partners;
  • dissemination of knowledge gained (presentations/workshops) to local stakeholders (e.g. farmers, organic food producers);
  • publishing the results in the form of monographs and scientific articles available in Open Access;
  • involving local stakeholders in the application of good practices in collaboration with the scientific community.

The project will help the V4 organic food sector by collecting, sharing and presenting the results of research on the organic food market and answering questions on consumer behaviour and purchasing decisions.

Contact person

Györéné Kis Gyöngyi

Dr. Gyöngyi Dr. Györéné Kis

Research project leader
Graduate in agricultural engineering, Ph.D. in environmental sciences

Related research

Choose from our downloadable booklets!

Choose from our downloadable booklets!