Management of Environmental Security Through Organic Agriculture. Contribution of Consumer Behavior

The paper examines and argues why environmental issues are matters of
security, offering conceptual clarifications upon "environmental security".
The range of issues considered as "environmental security" subjects are
numerous and diverse and one of these is related to food. Food production,
storage, distribution and quality have always been linked to environ mental
conditions. Food security through organic agriculture contributes to
environ mental security. Scientists often point to three factors as responsible
for environ mental state - population, technology, and consumption, but
consumption seems to get the least attention. We studiad consumer
behaviour as source of positive and negative consequences with impact on
environmental security. The study case presents the results of a survey
targeted on organic food consumers from NW Romania. We found that 73%
of subjects believe that organic food helps protecting the environ ment more
than conventional food and 60% believe that animal organic food comes
from animais that had better life (than conventional ones). We found a
statistically significant difference between people who believe humanity
faces natural environ ment problems which are very threatening and those
who do not concerning the strength of beliefs that organic food helps
protecting the environment more than conventional food (p<O.05). We
observed a direct, strong relationship between the strength of beliefs that
organic food has capacity to preserve existence of traditional products and
strength of beliefs that organic food has the capacity to protect natural
environ ment [r=.506, p=.OOO]. The paper defends the idea that consumers'
beliefs such as those related to nature protection or animal welfare through
organic food are valuable instruments that help to strengthen the
environ mental security.