Introduction
Modern cities have concentrated social infrastructures, but at the same time they also have various problems such as environmental and ecological damage, urban sprawl, and social alienation. Urban agriculture is receiving attention as an alternative to solve these problems of urban space (Jeon et al., 2011; Park et al., 2009; Lee et al., 2012). Urban agriculture has social, economic, and ecological functions beyond just agricultural production, raises public awareness of agriculture, and helps promote urban coexistence, thereby contributing to sustainable development that integrates the environment, economy, and society (Jang, 2009; Lee, 2016).
Internationally, urban agriculture is perceived as an important part of urban structure and is defined in a broader sense as a tool for urban planning (Bae and Shin, 2016). South Korea has established the ‘Act on Development and Support of Urban Agriculture’ in 2011 and is striving to promote urban agriculture through institutional and financial support (Heo and Kwon, 2014; Paik and Lee, 2018). In particular, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (MAFRA) is formulating a comprehensive plan for advancement of urban agriculture every five years according to Article 5 of the Act on Development and Support of Urban Agriculture. It seeks to continuously promote urban agriculture by establishing a system for advancement and support of urban agriculture through the 1st (2013–2017), 2nd (2018–2022), and 3rd (2023–2027) five-year plans to advance urban agriculture thus far.
In line with this trend, studies are conducted in various fields to develop and promote urban agriculture. There are studies setting the direction for urban problem solving and sustainable development through urban agriculture (Kingsley et al., 2021; Han and Jang, 2014), analyzing the preferences in urban agriculture types depending on lifestyles (Lee and Cho, 2016), and analyzing the characteristics of urban agriculture in discourses through text mining of news articles (Park and Shin, 2023). There are also empirical studies on participants of urban agriculture, such as those categorizing the activities of urban agriculture and analyzing the characteristics of participants in each category (Hwang et al., 2010), analyzing the relationship between importance, satisfaction, and sustainability by item of the ordinance on urban agriculture (Choi et al., 2014), and analyzing the perception and satisfaction toward urban agriculture compared between general participants and experts (KIm et al., 2018).
However, even though the five-year comprehensive plans for advancement and support of urban agriculture have been formulated and implemented since 2013, there is insufficient research that analyzes the perceptions of urban agriculture experts in the academia, research community, and actual settings that are establishing urban agriculture policies and systems or engaging in field activities. Therefore, this study was conducted to provide basic data for setting the policy direction to improve the awareness and promote urban agriculture by comprehensively reflecting the views of experts through importance-performance analysis (IPA) on the values and major achievements of urban agriculture.
Research Methods
Survey composition and data collection
To identify the importance-satisfaction on values and major achievements of urban agriculture, this study developed a survey consisting of total 32 items based on expert opinions in related fields, including 5 items on the general characteristics of respondents (gender, age, educational background, workplace, experience in urban agriculture), 13 items on values of urban agriculture, and 14 items on major achievements of urban agriculture. The variables were rated on a 5-point Likert scale from ‘Not at all important/satisfied’ (1 point) to ‘Very important/satisfied’ (5 points). The respondents were to also write down their subjective views on the importance of and satisfaction with urban agriculture to collect more in-depth opinions.
Items on values of urban agriculture were designed based on the multiple values of the 1st Five-year Plan for Advancement of Urban Agriculture by the MAFRA (2013), classifying them into economic, socio-cultural, environmental-ecological, and health functions by combining the study by Lee (2017) that classified the variables into social, economic, and health and the study by Koo (2022) that classified the variables into socio-cultural, economic, environmental-ecological, and health (physical, mental).
Items on major achievements were classified into creating infrastructure, network, education and publicity, and specialized model based on the five key tasks of the 1st Five-year Plan for Advancement of Urban Agriculture by the MAFRA (2013) and the four key tasks of the first half and latter half of the 2nd Five-year Plan for Advancement of Urban Agriculture by the MAFRA (2018a). Factors for each item were revised and supplemented through expert consultation based on the results of the implementation plan the year before the plan for advancement of urban agriculture from 2018 to 2022 (MAFRA, 2018b; MAFRA, 2019; MAFRA, 2020; MAFRA, 2021; MAFRA, 2022).
The survey was conducted online from November 15 to 27, 2022 on experts currently in charge of tasks related to urban agriculture, such as universities and other educational institutions, farms and agricultural-industrial institutions, government agencies (research, administration), associations and private institutions, and field activists. Total 104 responses were collected without missing values and thus were selected for final analysis.
Analysis method
The data of 104 responses ultimately selected were analyzed using SPSS Statistics 25.0 (IBM Corp., USA). First, frequency analysis was conducted to determine the demographic characteristics of respondents, and Cronbach’s α coefficient was calculated for reliability analysis to confirm the internal consistency of the survey tool (Table 1). The importance was greater than 0.79 and the satisfaction was greater than 0.87 on values and major achievements of urban agriculture, confirming that they met the standard of over 0.70 set by Nunnally (1978) as a reliable level.
Next, for empirical analysis of importance-satisfaction on values and major achievements of urban agriculture by experts, descriptive statistics, independent samples t-test, and one-way ANOVA were conducted. An independent samples t-test was conducted on gender since there are two groups, and one-way ANOVA was conducted to test the differences for other variables since there are at least three groups. Lastly, a paired samples t-test was conducted to verify the actual differences between importance and satisfaction, and IPA matrix analysis was conducted. The IPA, which is an analysis technique developed by Martilla and James (1977), is also used as Importance-Satisfaction Analysis (ISA) by replacing the concept of performance with satisfaction, and this method comparatively analyzes the relative importance and satisfaction of each quadrant based on the means (Bae et al., 2019; Bae and Shin, 2021).
In IPA analysis, the meaning of the attributes is given according to the distribution of each section of the quadrant presented in the graph as shown in Fig. 1, and different implementation strategies are derived depending on the location (So et al., 2019; Bae and Shin, 2021). According to Martilla and James (1977), Quadrant I shows high importance and satisfaction and thus requires continuous maintenance and management. Quadrant II shows high importance but low satisfaction and thus requires concentration. Quadrant III shows low importance and satisfaction and thus requires gradual improvement. Quadrant IV shows low importance but high satisfaction and thus requires improvement in terms of possible overkill.
Results and Discussion
Demographic characteristics
The demographic characteristics of respondents are as shown in Table 2. 56.7% (59 respondents) were male and 43.3% (45 respondents) were female, showing a higher percentage of male than female respondents. Most of them were in their 50s, with 30s at 11.5% (12 respondents), 40s at 17.3% (18 respondents), 50s at 51.9% (54 respondents), and 60s and over at 19.2% (20 respondents). For educational background, 38.5% (40 respondents) had a bachelor’s degree, followed by 34.6% (36 respondents) with a master’s degree, and 26.9% (28 respondents) with a doctoral degree. For workplace, most respondents worked as field activists or other at 48.1% (50 respondents), followed by universities and other educational institutions at 21.2% (22 respondents), associations and private institutions at 18.3% (19 respondents), farms and agricultural-industrial institutions at 6.7% (7 respondents), government agencies (research) at 3.8% (4 respondents), and government agencies (administration) at 1.9% (2 respondents). As for experience in urban agriculture, most have 5–10 years of experience at 29.8% (31 respondents), followed by less than a year at 27.9% (29 respondents), 10 years or more at 24.0% (25 respondents), and 1–4 years at 18.3% (19 respondents).
Analyzing the differences in importance and satisfaction
The results of testing the differences in importance and satisfaction on values and major achievements of urban agriculture are as follows.
Analyzing the differences in importance and satisfaction on values of urban agriculture depending on demographic characteristics
The independent samples t-test and one-way ANOVA were conducted to test whether there are significant differences in importance and satisfaction depending on demographic characteristics, and the results are as shown in Table 3.
Importance of values of urban agriculture was higher in male (M = 4.19) than female respondents (M = 4.08), and also in the 50s (M = 4.19) compared to other age groups. By educational background, importance was highest in those with a bachelor’s degree (M = 4.20), followed by master’s degree (M = 4.13) and doctoral degree (M = 4.08). By workplace, it was highest in farms and agricultural-industrial institutions (M = 4.23), followed by other (field activists) (M = 4.22). By experience in urban agriculture, it was highest in those with 1–4 years of experience (M = 4.22), followed by less than a year (M = 4.17).
Next, satisfaction with values of urban agriculture was also higher in male (M = 4.01) than female respondents (M = 3.85), and it was highest in the 60s and over (M = 3.97), followed by the 50s (M = 3.96). By educational background, satisfaction was highest in those with a master’s degree (M = 4.12); by workplace, it was highest in other (field activists) (M = 4.08); and by experience in urban agriculture, it was highest in those with less than a year of experience (M = 4.01).
One thing to note is that both importance and satisfaction on values of urban agriculture were high among other (field activists) for workplace, which is similar to the study results by Kim et al. (2018) revealing that those actually engaging in urban agriculture activities in the field, such as certified urban agricultural managers, highly perceive the social, environmental, and economic functions, or values, of urban agriculture. Overall, importance was higher than satisfaction, but there were no significant differences in importance and satisfaction depending on gender, age, educational background, workplace, and experience in urban agriculture. This is different from the study results by Koo (2022) revealing that there were significant differences in satisfaction with environmental and ecological functions depending on educational background and satisfaction with socio-cultural, economic, and health functions depending on occupation among values of urban agriculture. This raises the need for more in-depth theoretical considerations.
Analyzing the differences in importance and satisfaction on major achievements of urban agriculture depending on demographic characteristics
The independent samples t-test and one-way ANOVA were conducted to analyze the differences in importance and satisfaction on achievements of urban agriculture depending on demographic characteristics, and the results are as shown in Table 4.
Importance of achievements of urban agriculture was higher in female (M = 4.25) than male respondents (M = 4.10), and also in the 50s (M = 4.19) and 60s and over (M = 4.19) compared to other age groups. By educational background, importance was highest in those with a bachelor’s degree (M = 4.17), followed by master’s degree (M = 4.16) and doctoral degree (M = 4.16) that showed the same mean. By workplace, it was highest in farms and agricultural-industrial institutions (M = 4.35), followed by government agencies (research) (M = 4.32). By experience in urban agriculture, it was highest in those with 10 years of experience or more (M = 4.30), followed by 5 years - less than 10 years (M = 4.20).
Satisfaction with achievements of urban agriculture was higher in male (M = 3.38) than female respondents (M = 3.20), and it was highest in the 40s (M = 3.49), followed by 60s and over (M = 3.39), 30s (M = 3.34), and 50s (M = 3.19). By educational background, satisfaction was highest in those with a master’s degree (M = 3.46); by workplace, it was highest in government agencies (research) (M = 3.52) and associations and private institutions (M = 3.52); and by experience in urban agriculture, it was highest in those with 10 years of experience or more (M = 3.59).
In particular, both importance and satisfaction were high in those who have 10 years of experience in urban agriculture or more because they generally had a good understanding of the effect and need for urban agriculture and thus also highly perceived the major achievements. Overall, importance was higher than satisfaction, but there were no significant differences in importance and satisfaction on major achievements depending on gender, age, educational background, workplace, and experience in urban agriculture.
Analyzing the differences in importance and satisfaction on values of urban agriculture
The results of analyzing the differences in importance and satisfaction on values of urban agriculture by item are as shown in Table 5, and all had statistically significant differences (p < .05).
First, importance was highest in relieving stress by encountering nature (M = 4.36), followed by healthy hobbies and productive leisure activities (M = 4.32), exchange and harmony between neighbors and communities (M = 4.30), expansion of green area ratio (M = 4.25), and mitigation of urban heat island and global warming (M = 4.19).
Satisfaction was highest in relieving stress by encountering nature (M = 4.25), followed by health improvement effects through exercise and walking (M = 4.13), healthy hobbies and productive leisure activities (M = 4.13), learning effects of the plant cultivation process (M = 4.11), and expansion of green area ratio (M = 3.62).
By factor, both importance and satisfaction were highest in health functions, followed by socio-cultural functions, environmental-ecological functions, and economic functions. These results indicate that respondents highly perceived health functions and socio-cultural functions among values of urban agriculture. This implies that, as physical, psychological, and social health are all interacting with a close correlation, interest in therapy or healing is showing a rapid growth (Choi and Shin, 1991; Kim et al, 2014), which will further increase the importance.
Analyzing the differences in importance and satisfaction on major achievements of urban agriculture
The results of analyzing the differences in importance and satisfaction on major achievements of urban agriculture by item are as shown in Table 6, and all had statistically significant differences (p < .001).
Importance was highest in support for urban agricultural space creation (M = 4.26), followed by strengthening the urban agricultural support center infrastructure (M = 4.25), promoting urban agricultural policies and supporting school vegetable garden activities (M = 4.24), urban agricultural education and professional training (M = 4.20), and establishing a comprehensive information system for urban agriculture (M = 4.19). By factor, it was highest in creating infrastructure, followed by education and publicity, network, and specialized model. This indicates that respondents highly perceived the importance of creating infrastructure to establish and develop the foundation for urban agriculture, such as support for urban agricultural space creation, support center, and establishing a comprehensive information system among major achievements of urban agriculture.
Satisfaction was highest in hosting Korea’s urban agricultural fair (M = 3.48), followed by promoting urban agricultural policies and supporting school vegetable garden activities (M = 3.47), urban agricultural education and professional training (M = 3.38), diffusion of planting technology and customized technology by type (M = 3.35), establishing an urban agriculture-related system (M = 3.33), investigation of fine dust reduction functionality (M = 3.33), and establishing the foundation for industrialization of agro-healing (M = 3.33).
By factor, it was highest in education and publicity, followed by specialized model, creating infrastructure, and network. This showed that respondents highly perceived satisfaction with various policy support and publicity activities such as hosting an urban agricultural fair and publicity and expert education for advancement of urban agriculture such as education and professional training. This is in line with the study by Choi et al. (2014) reporting that education programs, such as urban agricultural professional training, lead to hosting an urban agricultural fair, which has high relevance with satisfaction with urban agriculture and sustainability.
IPA Matrix
IPA for values of urban agriculture
The importance-satisfaction matrix for values of urban agriculture is as shown in Fig. 2. The X-axis is satisfaction with values, and the Y-axis is importance of values. The results of analyzing the items that belong to each quadrant are as follows.
First, items that belong to Quadrant I, have both high importance and satisfaction, and thus must maintain and manage the current level are ‘healthy hobbies and productive leisure activities’, ‘exchange and harmony between neighbors and communities’, ‘learning effects of the plant cultivation process’, ‘mitigation of urban heat island and global warming’, ‘expansion of green area ratio’, ‘relieving stress by encountering nature’, ‘increasing self-esteem through plant cultivation’, and ‘health improvement effects through exercise and walking’. This result seems to reflect the awareness that urban agriculture may contribute to creating an urban environment and a community culture through leisure activities and green space (Cho and Kim, 2009) and can have a significant effect on improving physical and mental health (Hawkins et al., 2011; Harada et al., 2021). This indicates that, to promote urban agriculture, continuous management is necessary so that it is possible to maintain a positive perception and satisfaction toward socio-cultural functions, environmental-ecological functions, and health functions.
The item on the boundaries of Quadrant I and Quadrant II and has the characteristics of both Quadrant II that requires concentration and Quadrant I that must maintain the current level is ‘air purification effect through plant cultivation’. Considering that the perception toward the importance has increased as studies have been conducted to identify the air purification effect of plant cultivation, such as arrangement of plants on the balcony (Lee et al., 2007) or review of fine dust removal efficiency according to the morphological characteristics of plant leaves (Son et al., 2019), it is necessary to implement policies or systems to further increase satisfaction along with services that match them.
Items that belong to Quadrant III, that have both low importance and satisfaction, and thus require gradual improvement are ‘creating jobs related to urban agriculture’, ‘reducing medical expenses by improving physical activity and diet’, and ‘reducing food ingredient costs’. This indicates that since respondents show low perceptions toward both importance and satisfaction on the economic functions of urban agriculture, there is no need to concentrate first to improve them, but continuous attention must be paid since there is a possibility that the perception toward importance may increase in the future (Oh and Ko, 2014).
The item on the boundaries of Quadrant III that has low priority and must be improved later and Quadrant IV with possible overkill is ‘increasing understanding of rural areas through agricultural activities’. This suggests that it is necessary to limit the overkill to increase the perception toward importance of understanding rural areas through urban agriculture and seek ways to enable natural interaction based on urban-rural exchange or cooperation.
IPA for major achievements of urban agriculture
The importance-satisfaction matrix for major achievements of urban agriculture by factor among urban agriculture experts is as shown in Fig. 3. The X-axis is satisfaction with values, and the Y-axis is importance of values. The results of analyzing the items that belong to each quadrant are as follows.
First, items that belong to Quadrant I, have both high importance and satisfaction, and thus must maintain and manage the current level are ‘establishing the foundation for industrialization of agro-healing’, ‘urban agricultural education and professional training’, ‘promoting urban agricultural policies and supporting school vegetable garden activities’, and ‘hosting Korea’s urban agricultural fair’. Respondents perceive that these items are currently showing good performance and thus it is necessary to maintain the current state or actively improve it in order to promote urban agriculture.
Items with high importance but low satisfaction that belong to Quadrant II and require concentration for improvement are ‘establishing a comprehensive information system for urban agriculture’, ‘urban agricultural support center’, ‘support for urban agricultural space creation’, and ‘strengthening the urban agricultural support center infrastructure’. This result is consistent with the study by Hwang (2015) reporting that it is necessary to secure and expand spaces and infrastructures related to urban agriculture such as installation of urban agricultural support centers for the diffusion of urban agriculture. It was also similar to the report by the MAFRA (2022) that suggested the need to integrate information related to urban agriculture that is scattered among local governments and related agencies. This suggests the need for concentration in creating and strengthening infrastructure to spread urban agriculture and establishing and managing a comprehensive information system.
The item on the boundaries of Quadrant I and Quadrant II and has the characteristics of both is ‘establishing an urban agriculture-related system’. According to Heo et al. (2015), since the Act on Development and Support of Urban Agriculture was established in 2011 to promote urban agriculture, each local government has established ordinances related to urban agriculture and is striving to foster urban agriculture through various projects, but some local governments have discontinued this. As such, in order to spread and promote urban agriculture, it is necessary to lay a foundation for sustaining urban agriculture-related programs or projects, and thus active efforts must be made to establish and maintain systems that can support this.
Items that belong to Quadrant III with both low importance and satisfaction and are thus low priority are ‘utilizing a comprehensive information system for urban agriculture’ and ‘urban-rural human exchange and discovery of urban-rural co-prosperity projects’. Since Quadrant III requires limited investment rather than much attention (Kim et al., 2015), it seems necessary to change the perceptions by building a network through collaborative projects to promote how to use the comprehensive information system and resolve the issue of lack of consensus on urban-rural exchange and co-prosperity.
Items that belong to Quadrant IV with possible overkill showing low importance and high satisfaction are ‘development of a customized vegetable garden model’, ‘diffusion of planting technology and customized technology by type’, and ‘investigation of fine dust reduction functionality’. Considering the characteristics of Quadrant IV, these items are elements that do not require excessive effort (Kim and Han, 2016), so minimal management is appropriate rather than overkill on developing and building a specialized model in urban agriculture.
Considering the major achievements of the 2nd five-year plan in association with the IPA results in this study, ‘urban agricultural support center’, ‘support for urban agricultural space creation’, and ‘strengthening the urban agricultural support center infrastructure’ in Quadrant II seem to be emphasized aside from Quadrant I where it is important to maintain the current situation. This showed that it is necessary to strengthen the infrastructure and support for quantitative and qualitative improvement of urban agriculture and to set the policy direction to expand the scope of activities for certified urban agricultural managers. Next, ‘utilizing a comprehensive information system for urban agriculture’ and ‘urban-rural human exchange and discovery of urban-rural co-prosperity projects’ that belong to Quadrant III suggested that forward and backward linkages related to agriculture are required for urban-rural co-prosperity, which raises the need to establish a comprehensive information system as a portal that connects urban and rural areas to promote urban-rural linkages in upstream industries and links the supply and demand in urban agriculture. Since Quadrant IV shows high satisfaction, it will be possible to promote advancement of urban agriculture by establishing and managing specialized strategies that reflect the trends such as healing, social contribution, ornamental and landscape improvement, and increased species diversity to use various functions beyond the simple functional use of urban agriculture.
Conclusion
This study was conducted to analyze the importance and satisfaction on values and major achievements of urban agriculture and provide basic data for setting policy directions to improve awareness and promote urban agriculture. A total of 104 responses were selected for final analysis, and an importance-satisfaction (or importance-performance) analysis was conducted on the values and major achievements of urban agriculture.
To begin with, the results of analyzing the IPA matrix for values of urban agriculture are as follows. First, health functions of urban agriculture such as relieving stress by encountering nature, increasing self-esteem through plant cultivation, and health improvement effects through exercise and walking must be maintained at the currently high level of perception. This may be reflecting the interest in the therapeutic functions of urban agriculture, expectations for improvement in physical and mental health, and the importance of urban agriculture.
Second, there were also high perceptions toward socio-cultural functions such as healthy hobbies, exchange and harmony, and learning effects as well as environmental-ecological functions such as green space expansion and mitigation of climate crisis. However, it was found that efforts are needed for some functions such as air purification effect through plant cultivation and increasing understanding of rural areas through agricultural activities, suggesting the need to develop and spread various services to share information or operate related programs.
Third, for economic functions where both importance and satisfaction are low, immediate concentration is not necessary, but gradual improvement must be made. This showed that it is necessary to provide support to improve awareness and spread values based on phased plans and efforts by showing continued interest in economic functions such as creating jobs related to urban agriculture, reducing medical expenses, and reducing food ingredient costs.
In terms of other in-depth opinions gathered, some respondents claimed to understand the benefits of urban agriculture itself in terms of importance, but agriculture in urban areas has high opportunity costs, which reduces equity for citizens not participating in urban agriculture and efficiency in the city as a whole. In terms of satisfaction, some also claimed the need to expand emotional support and community services such as sharing of processes and regular interactions through urban agriculture, and stated that satisfaction is increased when there is cooperation from local governments such as mandatory employment of certified urban agricultural managers.
Next, the results of analyzing the IPA matrix for major achievements of urban agriculture are as follows. First, respondents highly perceived education and publicity such as hosting an urban agricultural fair and urban agricultural professional training and establishing the foundation for industrialization of agro-healing. These factors are currently showing good performance and thus require active publicity and policy support to continue maintaining the high perceptions for advancement of urban agriculture.
Second, it was found that concentrated improvement is required in creating infrastructure in order to promote urban agriculture. This showed that there is an urgent need to create conditions for strengthening infrastructure, such as establishing an urban agriculture-related system, supporting space creation, and establishing a comprehensive information system. Moreover, there is a need for a change in perceptions toward networks such as urban-rural exchange, indicating that gradual efforts must be made such as revitalizing the community and establishing communication channels to form consensus.
Third, avoiding possible overkill seemed to be appropriate for the specialized model in urban agriculture such as development of a customized vegetable garden model. This shows that full support and efforts must be given priority in creating infrastructure, which requires intensive improvement and development, rather than unnecessary efforts to raise awareness of specialized models that already have high satisfaction.
This study has significance in that it identified the perceptions of urban agriculture experts toward values and major achievements of urban agriculture. However, it has the following limitations. First, the number of samples for each group was limited, making it difficult to generalize the study results. More objective and thorough analysis can be done by securing sufficient urban agriculture experts from farms, agricultural-industrial institutions, and government agencies (administration, research). Next, only qualitative evaluation was conducted through importance-satisfaction for each factor, while quantitative evaluation could not be conducted. In particular, additional research that measures the economic effects of major achievements will help provide basic data useful in compiling budgets for areas that require concentrated effort or establishing infrastructure for related industrial development.
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