Market opportunities for social farms

Abstract

Although social farming is seen as a successful and innovative sector, social farms face various challenges, among which the need to find additional income required to stay in business. However, assuming that social farm food is considered as having ethical attributes, the research aims at investigating to what extent consumers are conscious of some ethical concerns (problems related to social hardship, social equity, food quality etc.), and whether this  will create market opportunities for social farm food. The study area is the province of Pordenone (Italy). The results indicate that conscious consumers could represent an effective market channel also for social farm food, a notable opportunity for farms to improve their socioeconomic performance.