Keywords

Boddula Kalyan, Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation

JEL Classification Codes

I12, Q1, Q13, Q18, Q56, J17.

Introduction

The outbreak of COVID-19 spread globally from China, as of 23 July 2021, the confirmed infections were 1,92,284,207, added to this line 4,136,518 confirmed deaths and a total of 3,646,968,156 vaccines doses.

Therefore, a normal consumer swing, abilities and buying were strictly restricted in fear of infection globally and that has begun to change in the geographical demo of purchase that may be environmental, health, survival psychology highlighted that people may endure various behavioral changes. In the surrounded environment of lockdowns, incessantly a double hit of COVID-19 in India, the flaming and fearing question in the minds of the people was the third wave; frankly, that was the newfangled query on Google in April 2022. Further, these behavioral changes might be affected negative thoughts in people mental conditions, panic buying, and even investments also.

Review of Literature

Theoretical Development

(Alvesson & Kärreman, 2017) believed that innovative, concentrated work in addition and centralize theoretical work are needed for abundant theoretical development as its connection in between the theory and empirical material Bellows et al. (2008). It is sighted that food is one of the three main consumption states accountable for the highest share of environmental impact (Reisch, et al. 2013) and simultaneously environmental sustainability is also a fundamental determinant of human health (Li, 2015); (Rizzo, et al. 2020) revealed that the fundamental role of the health attributes to particularly produce consumers’ preferences towards organic products around four-fifths of the total value attribute and also show a positive willingness to pay interest in health, look at personal accomplishment by the consumption of functional products and income.

Consumer Panic Behavior in Incessantly Aliment Abode: (Schäfer, et al. 2020) attempted the first study to analyze the impact of COVID-19 outbreak on mental health and investigated that SOC Sense of Coherence as a predictor of the variation in the symptoms with the high and low stress level and followed to the previous research (Liu, et al. 2020) found that stress is higher in the woman and in younger (Wang, et al. 2020).

Paradigm Shift: Busy Indians are encouraged at home and enhance their organic sector for nutrient and delicious food in the kitchen from their garden with food safety, quality, and security (Das, et al. 2020).

General Health Interest: Regarding farming methods consumers need to be addressed with more comprehensive and transparent about the organic food production, recognition of consumers who value high towards organic farming, and key indicators like use of labeling to value organic products.

New Ecoloical Paradigm (NEP): For a goup of people by using survey instrument constructed statements New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) was designed and measures the environmental concerns. It indicates the strength if the respondent’s agreement and disagreement about the statements and then used to construct various statistical measures for the environment concerns.

Role of Media: (Accenture, 2020), identified that before pandemic consumer wash their hands rarely but a drastic change due to pandemic shifted to washing their hands an average of 12 times a day, as well change in personal habits like cleaning surfaces and plan to continue these post outbreak Figure 1.

Research Methodology

An attempt has made by the authors to know that consumers had a paradigm shift towards organic food in this surrounded ailment environment with a sample of 112 Indian green consumers from 2^nd Jan to 21^st Aril 2022. By handling online survey method 112 green consumers inputs was composed with the structured questionnaire to evaluate the hypothesis relationship in the present study.

Scope of the Study

The study is confined to the limited number of Indian green consumers consuming organic products during the ailment environment from 2^nd Jan to 21^st Aril 2022.

Statement of the Problem

Due to this ailment environment, many of the organic farmers so efficiently making the process accurate, quick, comfortable, and so health by taking several safety measures. To ran away from this pandemic most of the green consumers taking an advantage of consuming organic food and transportation, easy accessibility with a single click with online shopping were 16.96percent (n=19) in the present study.

Research Objectives

In this ailment situation, health has become a necessity in human life, and consumers become more health-conscious that effectuating escalating the consumption of eco-friendly, organic, and healthy products. The main aim of the study is to analyze the importance and consumption of organic products that increase stamina in this viral environment.

Research Design

Above 152 questionnaires were spread online, and 112 (74 percent) were scrutinized to conclude the research work.

The facts, sources, and the prominent inputs of the respondents were gathered through fundamental and social statistics. The facts of the research were categorized into two main parts. Respondents’ demographical profiles with five dimensions were spread in the first part, and with 16 dimensions the second half includes six dimensions as a General Health Interest (GHI) like consumption of organic products, certification, naturally grown, health consciousness, citrus food, and affordable. Followed to this, seven dimensions were used to assess the motivating factors for the consumption of organic food, with respect to the Paradigm Shift (PS) from organic to conventional products at present, and added to this, the remaining three dimensions were used for the surrounded viral environment affect concerning with the consequences of the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) Table 1.

Table 1 Respondents Demographical Profile
S.no	Particulars of the respondents		Response of the sample	Percentage
1	Gender	Male	38	33.92
		Female	74	66.07
2	Age	Under 25 years	3	2.67
		26 to 35years	36	32.14
		36 to 45 years	62	55.35
		Above 45 years	11	9.82
3	Education qualification	Under Graduate	2	1.78
		Graduate	32	28.57
		Post Graduate	78	69.64
		Others	0	-
4	Occupation	Students	3	2.67
		Private employee	36	32.14
		Government employee	12	10.71
		Home makers	46	41.07
		Self employed	11	9.82
		Retired	4	3.57
5	Monthly income	Below 25,000	16	14.28
		25,001-35,000	46	41.07
		35,001-45,000	32	28.57
		Above 45,000	18	16.07

Hypothesis

H11: GHI has a positive relationship with the consumer PS.

H12: NEP has a positive relationship with the consumers PS.

Results and Discussion

The paper was designed to estimate the what activate the consumers to buy organic products as well as examine the relationship among the General Health Interest (GHI), Paradigm Shift (PS) and New Ecological Paradigm (NEP). Indian green buyers are the survey population. Among the study population, the sample (n= 112) was 33.92 percent (n=38) male and 66.07 percent (n=74) female, among them majority of the respondents 55.35 percent (n=62) were aged between 36-45 years, followed to this 32.14 percent (n=36) under the age group of 26-35 years, of them 9.82 percent (n=11) were above 45 years and of them 2.67 percent (n=3) are below 25 years. Likewise, 1.78 percent (n=2) had under Graduates, 25.57 percent (n=32) had Graduates, 69.64 percent (n=78) had Postgraduates. Along to these lines, 2.67 percent (n=3) are students, 32.14 percent (n=36) private employees, 10.71 percent (n=12) Government employees, 41.07 percent (n=46) homemakers, 9.82 percent (n=11) self-employees and 3.57 percent (n=4) retired people. Added to this, highest percentage reported a regular returns 41.07 percent (n=46) earned 25,001-35,000, 28.57percent (n=32) earned 35,001-45,000, 16.07 percent (n=18) earned above 45,000 and 14.28 percent (n=16) earned below 25,000 per month.

Table 2 indicates the utilization, consumption and adaptation of organic products of the sample of 112 respondents. Among them, 70.53 percent (n=79) are users of the organic products, 18.75 percent (n=21) are potential user and 10.71 percent (n=12) are conventional products users. Followed to these lines, 42.85 percent (n=48) are buying organic products once in a week, 32.14 percent (n=36) buy every fortnight, and remaining 25.00 percent (n=28) buy organic products every month. The result shows that a continuity in buying and consumption of the organic products in this pandemic. Added to this, consumers duration period for adaptation of organic products are found that majority of the sample respondents’ 46.42 percent (n=52) are opted from 6-12 months, 25.89 percent (n=29) less than 6 months, 23.21 percent (n=26) from 2 years and finally 4.46 percent (n=5) more than 2 years. Due to this ailment environment, 16.96 percent (n=19) are prefer to buy the organic products through online, 34.82 percent (n=39) are from local or small food stores, 19.64 percent (n=32) from large food stores and 25.57 percent (n=32) through open market Table 3.

Table 2 Utilization of the Organic Product User
S.no	Particulars of the respondents	Response of the sample	Percentage
Are you a user of organic product?	Yes	79	70.53
	No	12	10.71
	May be	21	18.75
Buying frequency	Weekly	48	42.85
	Fortnight	36	32.14
	Monthly	28	25.00
Time of adoption of organic products.	Never used	0	-
	< 6 months	29	25.89
	6 to 12 months	52	46.42
	1 to2 years	26	23.21
	> 2 years	5	4.46
Regular shop?	Local /small store	39	34.82
	Big store	22	19.64
	Open air market	32	28.57
	Online food store	19	16.96

Table 3 Results of Reliability and Validity
Variable	DC	Mean	Std. Deviation CA (>0.5)
GHI PS NEP	5Point LK 5Point LK 5Point LK	10.560 12.71 5.42	5.125 6.102 2.906	0.948 0.955 0.867

To examine the reliability with the help of the Cronbach Alpha test applied for internal consistency. When the alpha values are 0.7 the study is appropriate, but when the alpha values are more than 0.8 and above it indicates more favored for the research work. Table 4 mentions the results were as follows: reliability of GHI, PS and NEP were 0.948, 0.955 and 0.867, followed to this, the mean values of three variables were 10.560, 12.71 and 5.42 and the standard deviation values were 5.125, 6.102 and 2.906.

Table 4 Results of KMO and Bartlet’s
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy.		0.898
Bartlett's Test of Sphericity	Approx. Chi-Square	4276.285
	df	120
	Sig.	0.000

KMO measures the sample suitability of the factor analysis with (0.05-1.0) acceptable significance. It clearly exhibits that (χ2= 4276.285; DF=120 and p<0.001) hence analysis useful with a significance of 0.000 that shows high relation with the study variables. As a result, the data was appropriate for analyzing the element Table 5.

Table 5 Variance
Component	Rotation Sum of Square Loading
	Total	% of variance	Cumulative percent
1	2.237	26.75	26.75
2	1.536	12.88	39.63
3	2.444	27.48	67.11

The EFA (Exploratory Factor Analysis) for the factor extraction, and the above analysis clearly mentioned three components account for 67.11% variance. The table mention 16 items, determined variables, namely general health interest, paradigm shift, and new ecological paradigm. All the variable elements were > 0.05 and were found appropriate. The difference explained with each variable is 0.5 which shows significant variance with the present problem statement by principal component analysis (PCA) Forbes, (2017).

The above results exhibit in the table 6 about the homogeneity of the study by adopting Levene’s test that creates a peak priority to give a better output of the study. With the mention to HO1 and H02 stated that the GHI was positively associated with PS includes six variables. Therefore, Levene’s test were F (3,107)=6.838, p=0.000, F(1,107)=14.270, p=0.000, F(3,107)=6.295,p=0.000, F(93,107)=13.515, p=0.000, F(3,107)=21.404, p=0.000 and F(3,107)=13.460,p=0.000;F(3,107)=1.368,p=0.257,F(3,107)=10.740,p=0.000,F(3,107)=10.346,P=0.000,F(3,107)=35.541,p=0.000,F(3,107)=11.441,p=0.000,F(3,107)=40.214,p=0.000;F(2,109)=56.161,p=0.000,F(2,109)=146.432,p=0.000,F(2,109)=28.901,p=0.000.The final results of the confined study evidence that the examined values are less than 0.05 and 0.001, the concludes that fail to accept the alternative hypothesis due to a high variance in the groups. As stated in H02 problem, revealed that NEP was positively associated with variables in the present study that is natural resources misuse, ecological disaster so on Table 7 (Anderson, 2012).

Table 6 Homogeneity Test
	LS	Degree of freedom 1	Degree of freedom 2	Sig.
Very particular about consumption of organic product	6.838	3	107	0.000
Certification of a product	14.270	3	107	0.000
Grown with natural fertilizers (Manure, Compost)	6.295	3	107	0.001
Always follow a healthy, safe and balance diet.	13.515	3	107	0.000
Essential that the food contains a high Vitamin ‘C’ and Nutritious	21.404	3	107	0.000
Buy organic product even if it is expensive.	13.460	3	107	0.000
Due to the Ailment Environment	1.368	3	107	0.257
Keep in mind about Safety and Health consciousness	10.740	3	107	0.000
Increase demand in the consumption of citrus fruits	.	3	.	0.0
Food do not contain additives and preservatives.	10.346	3	107	0.000
Strong influence from family and friends	35.541	3	107	.000
Credible quality standards.	11.441	3	107	.000
It’s trendy, fashionable and traditional	40.214	3	107	.000
If current course continues, soon experience a major ecological disaster.	56.161	2	109	.000
Misuse of natural resources, environment severely by human	146.432	2	109	.000
Created only benefits like health consciousness, use of safe and healthy products.	28.901	2	109	.000

Table 7 Pearson Correlation Construct (N=112)
		PS	GHI	NP
PS	Pearson Correlation	1	0.919**	0.907**
	Sig. (2-tailed)		0.000	0.000
GHI	Pearson Correlation	0.919**	1	0.829**
	Sig. (2-tailed)	0.000		0.000
NEP	Pearson Correlation	0.907**	0.829**	1
	Sig. (2-tailed)	0.000	0.000

The above results clearly explain the correlation between the confined study variables that exhibits the purchasing of organic products that revealing that PS had a positive correlation with GHI (r=0.862**; p<0.000) and NEP (r=0.834**, p<0.000) at a 1 percent significance level, and the findings were confirmed by the (Yu, et al. 2018); (Paul, et al. 2016).

Conclusion

By opting for various factors towards climatic issues, organic and eco-friendly products in taking creates a new brand and image for the business and for the citizens. The study explores the relationship between the confined variables, and what triggers the purchasing of organic food by three primary variables such as GHI (General Health Interest), PS (Paradigm Shift) and NEP (New Ecological Paradigm), with 16 items were impact on the consumer behavior with peak movement of PS output that evidence environmental efficiency and had impact on environmental problems and was linked with the general health of the consumers with a new ecological paradigm effect and it also meant that there was a positive interrelationship between the PS, GHI and NEP variables. Hence, raise in the PS was positively reflected on their efforts to resolve the environmental problems that shift towards eco sustainable followed and supported the findings.

Research Implications

The research results revealed the understanding of Indian consumers’ behavior and buying of organic products epically in ailment environments with important implications for promoting organic and eco-friendly products. Since in this, PS was closely related to GHI and NEP, marketers must enhance the consumers’ preferences, and demand and include items in the proposed model.

Limitations and Future Directions

In this research work geographical area that barrier to confined study sample, as well as results and decisions also had its own limitations. The analysis may not essentially generalize with adopted sample techniques in the research work. It highlighted what aims the consumers to buy organic food in India.

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Received: 13-May-2022, Manuscript No. AMSJ-22-12012; Editor assigned: 15-May-2022, PreQC No. AMSJ-22-12012(PQ); Reviewed: 29-May-2022, QC No. AMSJ-22-12012; Revised: 29-May-2022, Manuscript No. AMSJ-22-12012(R); Published: 31-May-2022