Ruiz-Chico José, Peña-Sánchez Antonio R, Biedma-Ferrer José M, Jiménez-García Mercedes
INDESS (University Institute for Sustainable Social Development), University of Cadiz, 11406 Jerez de la Frontera, Spain.
Department of General Economy, Faculty of Social Sciences and Communication, University of Cadiz, Avda. de la Universidad, 4-11406 Jerez de la Frontera, Spain.
Foods. 2020 Jul 10;9(7):910. doi: 10.3390/foods9070910.
Aquaculture is an important source of food. This document analyses its acceptance by consumers from the perspective of social carrying capacity. This concept determines the point at which its development begins to be excessive, and poses difficulties to its geographical area. In this context, our work is innovative, since, although Spain is the leading aquaculture producer in the European Union, not much research on this aspect has been developed. With this objective, we carried out 579 personal interviews with consumers from the Andalusian Atlantic coast (Spain), to determine an index of acceptance for this food and its industry. After applying a principal component analysis, we stratified the samples following Dalenius-Hodges method. According to our surveys, there is a high level of acceptance, which would place aquaculture far from its saturation point, the level at which this sector generates relevant problems for society in terms of economy or environment. Respondents also recommended its further development. Women and low-income consumers were the groups with the greatest reticence about this sector. We consider that general acceptance would be improved by implementing informative campaigns, especially for these groups, that would extend consumers' knowledge and improve their perception of this kind of food.
水产养殖是重要的食物来源。本文从社会承载能力的角度分析了消费者对水产养殖的接受程度。这一概念决定了水产养殖发展开始变得过度并给其所在地理区域带来困难的临界点。在这种背景下，我们的工作具有创新性，因为尽管西班牙是欧盟领先的水产养殖生产国，但在这方面开展的研究并不多。出于这一目的，我们对来自西班牙安达卢西亚大西洋海岸的消费者进行了579次个人访谈，以确定对这种食物及其产业的接受指数。在应用主成分分析之后，我们按照达莱纽斯 - 霍奇斯方法对样本进行了分层。根据我们的调查，消费者的接受程度很高，这表明水产养殖远未达到饱和点，即该行业在经济或环境方面给社会带来相关问题的水平。受访者还建议进一步发展水产养殖。女性和低收入消费者是对该行业最有顾虑的群体。我们认为，开展宣传活动，尤其是针对这些群体的宣传活动，能够增进消费者的知识并改善他们对这类食物的认知，从而提高总体接受程度。
