Internet use as a form of direct sales for agro-food products-Empirical evidence before and during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Selling agro-food products via the Internet is becoming an increasingly frequent means of sale. The importance of the Internet as a sales channel has been particularly pronounced during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has been characterised by the use of digital technologies in all spheres of human life. The paper presents an analysis of the Web farmer's market application (WFMA) over a 5-year period. WFMA is used by local producers in Istria County (Croatia) and online customers. The analysis was carried out in several steps using primary and secondary data sources. Primary data were collected by two online surveys on a farmers sample (N=89) and WFMA users (farmers) (N=53) and later analysed running x2 test and T-test. Secondary data was collected mainly from the WFMA administration and from other available reliable sources.