A Study on the Pattern of Consumption Behavior of Environmentally-friendly Agricultural Products by Housewives and an Assessment of the Need for Environmentally-friendly Agricultural Products in Childcare Centers in Jeonju

전주지역 유아기 어머니의 친환경 농산물 이용실태 및 보육시설에서의 친환경 급식 요구도 조사

The principal objective of this study was to evaluate the consumption behavior of housewives in the Jeonju area with respect to their use of environmentally-friendly agricultural products(EAPs) and to assess the need for EAPs in childcare centers also in the Jeonju area. Self-administered questionnaires were given to and collected from 278 housewives 42.4% of whom employed and 57.6% were unemployed. Statistical data analysis was performed on the data collected using SPSS v. 12.0. The average score of awareness about EAPs was $3.57{\pm}0.56$. The percentage of subjects who purchased EAPS was 76.3% regularly. On this group, 40.3% purchased EAPs 1~2 times in week. Unemployed housewives purchased more than employed housewives by a statistically significant margin(p<0.05). The most-purchased EAPs were vegetables. The average satisfaction score that housewives reported in relation to foodservice provided in childcare centers was $3.66{\pm}0.58$. About 65% of the respondents felt that the EAPs-foodservice in childcare centers was an important factor for them in choosing of a childcare centers. Approximately 42% of the housewives responded that EAPs-foodservice in childcare centers was needed to improve the safety of foodservice provided in chidcare centers. The percentage of subjects who wanted to expand EAPs-foodservice in childcare centers even though the parents would have to bear some of the financial burden was 42.5%. A higher proportion of employed housewives wanted to expand EAPs-foodservice in childcare centers more than unemployed housewives, and this finding was statistically significant(p<0.05).