(IJIRSE) International Journal of Innovative Research in Science & Engineering ISSN (Online) 2347-3207 For Which Food Category is Albanian Consumer Organic-Sensitive Elena Kokthi 1 Eneida TOPULLI², Fatmir Guri 3 . Natasha HODAJ 4 1 PhD Candidate Department of Economic Analysis and Political Economy at the University of Seville University of Seville (Spain) 2 Lecturer, Agricultural University of Tirana (Albania) 3 Agriculture University of Tirana(Albania) 4 Professor, Agricultural University of Tirana(Albania) Abstract— The main objective of this paper is to analyse consumer preferences regarding organic- attribute sensitiveness in food products. Five-ordered Likert scale is used to assess the importance given to organic attribute to different food categories of daily consumer basket. The aim of this study is also to understand the correlation of socio-demographic characteristics of consumers and importance given to organic feature to each of food product category. This study will give feedback to policy makers and researchers in future Willingness to Pay (WTP) studies. Keywords-Albania, Likert scale, Organic Production, Preferences, Pre-Diagnostic I. INTRODUCTION Albania is a typical agricultural country. More than 50% of the labor force is involved in agriculture. About 18% of GDP is obtained by agriculture. Albanian agriculture is dominated by the conventional agriculture system (50%) and Low External Input Agriculture (LEIA 40%). (MARDWA 1 , 2014).Organic agriculture with integrated agriculture systems occupies respectively 1% and 9 %( INSTAT 2 , MARDWA,2014)., Limited access to agricultural inputs in Albania implies a low input agriculture (Bernet & Kazazi, 2011) this offers the possibility to have low presence of pesticides and other chemicals in the final agricultural products and provides new possibilities to differentiate the agriculture products with quality schemes such as Organic Agriculture. The identification, promotion and certification of these products are very important steps in order to ensure rural and local development in less favored areas. Compared to other quality differentiation strategies such as Protected Geographical indication (PGI) or Protected Denomination of Origin (PDO) organic production quality scheme is more developed. Several Albanian agricultural products are exported in EU member states (e.g. Extra Virgin Olive Oil, medicinal plants etc). However compared to its potentials this sector remains in its initial stage of development. Organic Production in Albania is supported by public policies through direct support schemes. Several initiatives have taken place in the last decade by several NGO-s and research- actions projects (BioDevBalkan, 2011) in order to support research of specific product value chains, the infrastructure development around the product and its marketing. Furthermore a better understanding of consumer behaviour is crucial for better designing market strategies and decisions. Several researches have been undertaken regarding origin attribute in consumer preferences in Albania using Contingent Valuation Kokthi, Gonzàles Limon, & Vàzques Bermudez, 2014;taste experiment; (Kokthi, Hodaj, & Topulli, 2014) and conjoint analyses (Imami et al., 2014; Imami, Chan-Halbrendt, Zhang, & Zhllima, 2011). Limited research is made on organic attribute in consumer food preferences in Albania (Shkreli et al., 2014) .The objective of this paper is to undertake a pre-diagnostic regarding the products that Albanian consumer is more sensitive to organic practices. The results of this study will be useful in two directions: orienting future WTP studies and directing policy support to those products that seems more bio-sensitive by the consumer.