1. Introduction
Pesticides are used in many areas of agriculture to improve yield and product quality [
1]. The positive outcomes of the rational use of pesticides have been extensively reviewed by Cooper & Dobson (2007) [
2], who pointed out that pesticides make our lives better, provided they are regulated and used in such a way that the benefits significantly outweigh the risks. The most featured contribution of pesticide use is the reduction of food losses due to crop pests and diseases [
3,
4,
5], especially in developing countries where pre- and post-harvest losses have an impact on poverty and malnutrition [
6,
7].
The public health risks from dietary exposure to pesticide residues is highly controversial because the significance of their presence in the diet is difficult to evaluate [
1,
8]. Most of the studies related to the human health effects of pesticides deal with occupational exposure [
9]. Nevertheless, concerns have been expressed about the potential negative effects of pesticides on the health of the general population via dietary exposure. Several studies have shown the neurotoxic [
10] and cytotoxic effects [
11] of pesticides and their activity in gene mutation, chromosomal damage, and DNA damage effects [
12]. Population studies have revealed possible links between exposure to pesticides and severe health effects, including cardiovascular disease, negative effects on the male reproductive system and nervous system, dementia, a potential increased risk for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma [
13], as well as a possible role in colorectal carcinoma etiology [
14]. There is also suggestive evidence for pesticides increasing Parkinson’s disease risk [
15]. It has been shown that the dietary intake of pesticides represents the major source of exposure in urban/suburban young children and a great concern has been raised about the children’s health because of their susceptibility to possible neurologic and neurodevelopmental effects [
16,
17,
18,
19]. Bourguet and Guillemaud (2016) [
20] have argued that the cost of pesticide use has outreached the benefits. However, concern has been expressed that few of the health effects that have been associated with pesticides can be classified as causal [
9]. In addition, concerns have been raised about the simultaneous presence of multiple pesticide residues in food [
11,
21]. However, Hernández and Lacasaña (2017) [
22] concluded that synergisms at dietary exposure levels are rather rare and cannot be predicted quantitatively based on the toxicity of the mixture components. After the recently published retrospective cumulative risk assessments of dietary exposure to residues in 2014, 2015, and 2016 of pesticides that have acute effects on the nervous system [
23] and chronic effects on the thyroid [
24], the European Food Safety Authority has concluded that, with varying degrees of certainty, cumulative dietary exposure does not reach the threshold for regulatory consideration for all the European population groups examined. After all, research on the health benefits of fruit and vegetable consumption has demonstrated that they significantly outweigh the pesticide residues’ estimated risks [
25].
There is, therefore, still high uncertainty about the health effects of pesticides in research, and reliable information about pesticides and health can scarcely reach lay people [
10]. Additionally, the role of pesticides in sustainable food production is barely discussed with the public [
26]. Consequently, the ratio of risks versus the benefits of pesticide use will continue to be a matter of public concern, and the consumers’ perceived risks will deviate from the estimations of Regulatory Authorities based on facts [
2,
27,
28] and following specific risk assessment procedures [
29]. It is, therefore, inevitable that pesticide residues in food generate high levels of perceived risks [
30,
31].
Perceived risk is a function of subjective uncertainty perceived by the consumer. Consumer risk perception tends to give greater weight to the perceived potential severity of unhealthy food than the probability of exposure [
28]. It has been shown that consumers perceive relatively high risks associated with the consumption of conventionally grown agricultural produce, particularly pesticide-related risks [
32]. Besides, health benefits are among the most important factors motivating the purchase of organic food products [
33].
Yeung and Morris (2001) [
28] stated that chemical hazards tend to be rated relatively high on the “unknown” factor because people view these as unnatural and unfamiliar. People very often attribute high risks to food products if they have less knowledge of chemical or technological processes. Individuals perceive greater control over biological food risks than chemical/technical risks [
34]. The tolerance of risk is positively correlated with the perceived benefit; the bigger the benefit, the greater the willingness to take risk [
28]. Perceived control and benefit perceptions are negatively associated with food safety risk perception. On the contrary, consumers who prefer natural food and those who are more concerned about their food perceive more food safety risks [
35].
Risk perception and purchase behavior are causally linked: the former is an important explanatory variable of the latter. Some consumers are willing to pay marginally higher prices for quality assurance and, hence, reduced risk in food, especially during periods of safety concern [
28]. Many studies have previously investigated the consumers’ willingness to pay for pesticide-free products. It has been shown to be influenced by factors such as female gender, younger age, shopping at health food stores, as well as concern about pesticides, health, and sustainability issues [
36,
37,
38,
39].
Trust of the stakeholders [
40] and the official Authorities and confidence in the safety of the food supply are significant predictors of the consumers’ food safety risk perceptions [
32,
34]. In modern industrialized societies, people outside of the food production chain rely on institutional actors to protect the safety of their food, although the effect of trust on food risk concerns varies substantially across European countries [
34]. Government agencies seem to lack credibility among consumers, and consumer confidence in the adequacy of government regulations on pesticide use has decreased dramatically [
32,
34,
41]. Han et al. (2020) [
42] have found that the monitoring of pesticide residues and control procedures significantly reduce people’s negative perceptions of food safety. It has been suggested that risk communication efforts designed to educate consumers about food safety issues need to further include issues related to the credibility of regulatory procedures and information sources [
32], as well as appropriate information dissemination systems, to bridge the gaps between regulators and the general public [
42].
Harris et al. (2001) [
43] stated that the perception of the risk of pesticide residues by consumers has always been affected by emotional input, which is something that possibly accounts for any exaggeration upon new information [
9]. Risk perception of food is most commonly affected by cognitive processing of information provided by third parties and deliberations related to the individual’s condition [
44].
The media play a critical role in risk communication [
45]. Effective risk communication should contain information on the nature of the risk and the benefits, uncertainties in risk management, and risk management options [
46]. The consumers’ attitudes and risk perceptions towards food safety are influenced by the media [
34,
47]. Risk amplification by the media has been thoroughly discussed in the literature [
45]. Massive media coverage is more likely to heighten the perception of risk and demand for action to alleviate the perceived risk [
28]. Food risks are often covered by the media according to factors that are more suited to the criteria for making the news than to the way in which experts rank food risks [
48]. According to Kehagia & Chrysochou (2007) [
49], Greek media are sensitive in uncovering a great deal of information about food hazards to the public. They concluded that the media coverage of food hazards considering pesticide residues in food were characterized by alarming content with a tendency to exaggerate the potential risk. On the contrary, exposure to media has been associated with better knowledge on the regulatory aspects of pesticides and, consequently, lower reported levels of perceived risks [
50].
Consumer attitudes towards food safety differentiate according to sociodemographic factors [
51]. Gender is a good predictor of risk perception. Females seem to perceive more food safety risks than males. Marriage status also increases the likelihood of concern [
34,
52,
53]. The effect of children on food risk concerns may be significant [
52] but not always [
34,
53]. Young, well-educated, and female urban residents perceived greater risks to food safety than other groups [
42]. As education increases, respondents report significantly fewer concerns about biological risks, but greater concerns about chemical/technical risks [
34].
Several previous studies have recorded the attitudes and perceptions of Greek consumers regarding the willingness to pay more money to buy safer food from brands that provide information. Karagianni et al. (2003) [
54] have shown that consumers in Greece consider the absence of pesticide residues from the fruits and vegetables they purchase as a very important parameter. Females, as well as those who had knowledge of the HACCP certification system were more concerned about chemical residues. A high willingness to purchase certified fruits and vegetables has also been demonstrated [
55]. Tsakiridou et al. (2006; 2008) [
56,
57] have shown that Greek consumers who are interested in chemical residues in food express a greater willingness to buy organically produced products. In addition,, it has been shown that both attitudes toward consuming safer food and the presence of traceability affect Greek consumers’ willingness to buy certified food [
58,
59,
60,
61], with labeling acquiring special significance as a means of helping consumers assess the quality of food products [
61,
62,
63]. Information is an important risk reliever. Consumers wish to acquire more information if there are uncertain outcomes for purchasing decisions, and product traceability has been a key issue in this respect [
28].
Making the EU food supply chain “from farm to fork” more sustainable is at the heart of the European Green Deal. One of the main purposes of this fundamental shift in the EU food and agriculture policy is the targeted 50% reduction in the use and risk of chemical pesticides by 2030 [
64,
65]. As criticism regarding the strategy is not lacking concerning agricultural production, competitiveness and social welfare [
66], there is a need for additional information on the general public’s perceptions regarding pesticide use. The present work aimed to improve our knowledge about the Greek consumers’ beliefs, the predictor variables associated with personal attitudes and views, as well as socioeconomic characteristics that might influence them, addressing the question of the ratio between the benefits of pesticides versus their potential risks. In this area, information on the general public’s perceptions is scarce. In this respect, the research in this paper was undertaken aiming to answer the following research questions:
RQ1: What are the Greek consumers’ views towards the issue of whether the benefits of pesticide use outweigh their potential risks;
RQ2: What sociodemographic and attitude variables predict the Greek consumers’ personal views towards the benefits versus the potential risks ratio of pesticide use.
2. Materials and Methods
The study was conducted through a web-based survey. The data collection was facilitated using a questionnaire posted on the Google Forms platform (
https://www.google.com/forms/ (accessed on 31 March 2021). The survey questionnaire was sent via email, through Viber and Facebook’s Messenger applications to approximately 9100 recipients, while it was also disseminated by articles in online news fora and magazines. Through the duration of the survey, 1846 completed questionnaires were obtained, which indicates a survey response rate estimated at 20%. The purpose of this survey was exploratory in nature, since no prior study was conducted using a large, nationwide sample to inquire about the Greek general population’s attitudes towards the research questions.
The survey, undertaken between 6th March and 31st March 2021, aimed to investigate the beliefs, perceptions, and feelings of the general consumers’ audience on pesticides, pesticide residues, and food safety in Greece. The questionnaire was designed based on previous consumer opinion studies on food safety [
36,
41,
50,
58]. It included 5-point Likert-scale closed questions regarding the participants’ perceptions or attitudes. The response levels for the Likert scale were: 1 = totally disagree, 2 = partly disagree, 3 = neither disagree/nor agree, 4 = partly agree, 5 = totally agree, or, 1 = never, 2 = rarely, 3 = occasionally, 4 = frequently, and 5 = habitually, depending on the case. The questionnaire was divided into two sections: (a) sociodemographic data and (b) respondents’ views. The personal views questions related to the participants’ beliefs regarding statements on the positive contributions of pesticides to food production and the national economy, the pesticide proper application, and the necessity of their use. The questions also related to their views and concerns regarding plant food safety and consumer health, pesticide residue official control, food traceability, and certification issues, as well as specific diet habits. In addition, they related to their worries regarding their own health and other people’s. Finally, questions regarding the participants’ information sources were included. The specific items of the questionnaire are presented in
Appendix A,
Table A2.
In order to describe the characteristics of the sample and to present the results of the survey, the data collected from the questionnaires were initially subjected to descriptive statistical analysis. The median was used as the appropriate central tendency measure to present and interpret the results of the questionnaire, following Skarpa and Garoufallou (2021) [
67]. The non-parametric Kruskal–Wallis test was performed to test differences in the ordinal variables.
A principal components analysis (PCA) was performed to identify the underlying information structure contained in the original interrelated variables and to summarize it into a smaller set of composite variables. An eigenvalue criterion greater than 1 was used as a cut-off point for the number of principal components (PC) retained. After oblique (promax) rotation was performed, the rotated loadings (eigenvectors) portrayed a much more simplified PC-loading pattern with each variable loading (correlating) substantially only to a single PC. In the final analysis, only variables with loadings > 0.6 were retained. The appropriateness of PCA was tested performing the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) test, which takes values ranging from 0 to 1, as a measure of sampling adequacy, and the Bartlets’s test of sphericity, a significant result of which indicates that at least some pairwise correlations among variables are not equal to 0 [
68].
The McDonald’s ω reliability coefficient of internal consistency for the scale variables [
69] loading on a single PC was calculated and reported. In order to get a single measure of each PC, variables loading on a single PC were combined using composite scores for further analysis [
68].
Binary logistic regression was performed to identify any potential predictors concerning the participants’ views about the overall benefits of pesticides upon their risks, as the dependent variable. Sociodemographic variables and PCs retained from the PCA were involved as possible predictors in the model. Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated and presented. The Wald test of statistical significance for each of the independent variables in the model was performed. Finally, performance metrics such as specificity and sensitivity, which presents the proportions of true-negative and true-positive observations predicted by the model, respectively, along with AUC (area under the ROC curve portraying the trade-off between true positive rate versus false positive rate) which is an overall test of predictive accuracy and indicates the amount of discrimination between true-positive and false-positive values of the estimated model, were calculated and presented. A large AUC (>0.5–1) indicates better model fit [
68].
For the purpose of performing logistic regression analysis, variables of participants’ views were split into two levels with a binary outcome: “in favor” = 1, after grouping together the Likert response levels “partly agree” and “totally agree,” and “not in favor” = 0, after grouping the Likert response levels “totally disagree,” “partly disagree,” and “neither disagree/nor agree,” following Skarpa & Garoufallou (2021) [
67].
A non-hierarchical k-means cluster analysis was performed in order to proceed with the partition of participants into groups based on similarity for a set of user selected characteristics. The aim was to determine structures that adequately summarize the data in order to identify groups of consumers with similar attitudes towards pesticide use. The analysis was based on the PC’s that had been previously retained from PCA as clustering variables that related to consumer’s perceptions [
44]. To further characterize the clusters and to investigate any significant differences between the clusters, the Chi-squared test of association and Mann-Whitney U tests were conducted for variables with nominal and ordinal outcomes, respectively.
The analyses were carried out using the open-source statistical analysis software “Jamovi 2.0.0” using the R programming language [
70].
4. Discussion
This study investigated the attitudes and perceptions of Greek consumers in respect to the balance between the benefits and risks of pesticide use. According to our knowledge, no previous study has attempted to elucidate the consumers’ views on pesticide use in Greece and, moreover, this is the first large-sample survey conducted regarding the Greek consumers’ attitudes towards this issue. The subjects used in this survey came from all Greek Regions, were residents of urban and rural areas, and belonged equally to both genders. All age groups were adequately represented, ranging from 18 to over 65 years old. On a central tendency basis, participants were regular agricultural food consumers, frequently consuming fruits and vegetables, following the traditional Greek cuisine. They occasionally consumed certified agricultural food products and rarely consumed organically or self-produced fruits and vegetables.
Data analysis, using the median of participants’ responses as the central tendency measure, revealed neither disagreement, nor agreement to the statement under consideration, i.e., whether or not the benefits of using pesticides outweigh the potential risks. Nevertheless, a significantly higher proportion of unfavorable responses were found. Approximately 55% of the respondents to the survey of the present study seem not to be supportive of a statement implying the predominance of benefits over the potential risks from the pesticide use. This outcome was expected once the findings of the previous Special Eurobarometer survey, concerning the food safety in the EU, were taken into account. Greek consumers ranked pesticide residues as the most important food safety concern, followed by animal diseases and veterinary pharmaceutical residues in the meat [
41].
In the overall regression model, the general hypothesis that perceptions, personal concerns, and views about several procedures and sociodemographic characteristics help to explain consumers’ attitudes on pesticide use was confirmed. According to the results, there is evidence that the participants supported the statement that “there are more benefits of pesticide use than their potential risks” if they were in favor of the beneficial contributions of pesticide use and they were professional or amateur users of pesticides. A similarly positive response was recorded if the participants were males and expressed more intense confidence in plant food safety and control procedures, were informed about pesticides by specialized or general information sources, and, finally, showed confidence in plant food certification procedures. Perceived threats about pesticide use was a significant predictor that negatively influenced the respondents’ attitude regarding the pesticides’ benefits versus their potential threats ratio.
Τhe stronger positive predictor of the consumer’s attitude towards pesticides seem to be the perceived pesticide contributions. They can be analyzed into the constituent variables of pesticides’ contribution to the national income, their necessity to ensure crop production and food security, and the belief that the user and the consumer can be safeguarded through the proper application of pesticides. In central tendency terms, respondents in the survey agreed with all the above elements. Perceived pesticide contributions seem to influence the judgments of participants in favor of the statement that pesticide benefits outweigh their potential threats. Our results are in line with Dunlap & Beus (1992) [
71], who have reported that the perception of the necessity of pesticide use was the most important predictor of public views on pesticides. Attempts to explain such outcomes have been made through the concepts of cognitive consistency. People are possessed by a strong desire for consistency in their beliefs. This is about the consistency between a comparatively stable affective or evaluative orientation toward an issue and the individual’s views about how this relates to other issues of affective significance. Ιssues that are favored are usually considered to serve the value background, to have characteristics that are favorable, grouped with other attractive topics, and stand out from the unattractive ones [
72]. Previous studies have shown the existence of a strong inverse interdependence between risk and benefit judgments. Alhakami & Slovic (1994) [
73] have shown that issues towards which people had positive attitudes were viewed as having high benefit and low risks and vice versa. Ueland et al. (2012) [
44] stated that if there is a greater benefit associated with a product, more risk can be accepted. Accordingly, Dunlap and Beus (1992) [
71] have found that those who considered pesticides essential did not perceive a high risk, suggesting that they were more likely to consider the use of pesticides acceptable. In our results, this negative relationship that has been previously described between perceived risks and benefits is clearly indicated in the PCA graph, where the perceived threats point in the opposite direction than the perceived pesticide contributions.
The status of a pesticide user, whether for professional or amateur reasons, particularly affects the participants’ positions and views on pesticides. While most of the participants were not users of pesticides (57.3%), neither for professional nor amateur reasons, this is the strongest positive predictor variable after the perceived pesticide contributions. This result confirms Coppin et al. (2002) [
74] who also found that the pesticide-use variable was a significant predictor of acceptability of pesticide use. This could be explained by Huang (1993) [
75] who reported that personal use of pesticides has a significant impact in reducing consumers’ fear about pesticide residues on food and the balance between the benefits and risks associated with them. It seems that familiarity with an issue reduces the feelings of uncertainty and increases perceived control, which lays the basis for the consumer to be more appreciative of the beneficial aspects of the issue [
44,
75]. It should be noted that no significant influence was recorded from the population of the place of residence variable (i.e., urban/rural areas). Pesticide users acting as professional or amateur farmers may have also experienced the importance of pesticide use in successful crop production directly associated with food security at a community level. This is in line with Coppin et al. (2002) [
74], who stated that for pesticide perceptions, personal experience is more important than residence status.
Male gender also has a significant impact on consumer views, causing a positive effect on the acceptance of pesticide use benefits against their potential negative effects. The finding of a positive and significant male gender effect is consistent with previous studies that have shown that females have a higher risk perception than males with respect to chemical residues [
51,
54,
71,
75,
76].
Perceived plant food safety and confidence in pesticide residues control procedures positively affects the respondents’ attitude. This outcome is related to the constituent perceptions that food of plant origin is generally safe, and that plant food produced in Greece is as safe as in other EU States. Respondents agreed to both aforementioned statements. Two additional variables were associated with the above predictor, namely, that the consumer is generally not at risk from the consumption of fruit and vegetables and that plant food is routinely tested for pesticides residues. These results depict the importance of control procedures and effective implementation of pesticide and food safety regulations. At the central tendency level, neutrality was recorded to both statements among participants. The results of previous Special Eurobarometer survey have shown that a 28% of Greek consumers agree that official Authorities and EU keep them safe from food risks, just below the EU28 average [
41]. This implies the need for further involvement of food safety Authorities in the communication of the risk associated to pesticide use to the Greek public. Given the inherent difficulty of such an endeavor due to difference in risk perception between experts and lay people [
44,
77], the challenging and decisive role that official bodies are called upon to play is realized.
Our results depicted that information plays an important role in consumer’s perceived views on pesticide use. Being informed about pesticides by either specialized or general information sources is a significant predictor of the participants’ positive predisposition to the benefits of pesticide use over any potential adverse effects. Among specialized information sources, agronomists seem to be the most frequent source for obtaining information on pesticides. This outcome is explained by the fact that in Greece, the legislation on pesticides requires that certain conditions of scientific background are met, so a natural or legal person is allowed to be actively involved in the trade of pesticides [
78]. Nonetheless, information sources on pesticides such as official websites, public bodies, newsletters, and scientific journals were more strongly associated with the principal component of specialized information sources in the PCA. General information sources (i.e., electronic press, television-radio, press and social media) were also positive predictors of the consumer’s views on pesticides. In central tendency terms, respondents declared that they occasionally chose electronic press as a source of information on pesticides, while they rarely used television-radio, press, or social media.
Huang (1993) [
75] has stated that consumers have the tendency to reverse the accepted hierarchy of risks from food, perhaps due to misinformation or lack of knowledge. Koch et al. (2017) [
50] reported that unawareness of legal maximum residue limits was associated with increased levels of concern about pesticide residues in food. Our results depicted the key role of information related to pesticide use, particularly from specialized sources, communicating either risk assessment or the strict regulatory framework governing the trade and use of pesticides. More specifically, after participants’ clustering, a significantly lower frequency of being informed about pesticides has been found among non-supporters than supporters of pesticide use benefits versus threats. This could imply a limited level of knowledge about pesticides, with possible implications to consumer’s perceived threats, in line with Webster et al. (2010) [
79], who reported that the public often ranks higher a food safety issue based on a lack of available knowledge.
An interesting principal component that has emerged from the results of the present study, with positive predictive influence on consumer’s perceptions on pesticides, is the confidence in plant food certification procedures. This trust stems from the importance of traceability for consumers and information provision by plant-food labeling, along with the sense of safety that certification promotes, especially of integrated farming management certified products. Participants generally agreed to all above variables. The results are supportive of previous research showing the importance that certification, information provision, and labeling play to Greek consumers in order to assess the quality of food they buy [
54,
55,
56,
57,
58,
60,
61,
62]. Ueland et al. (2012) [
44] commented that the lack of consumers’ own control can be substituted by control exercised of trusted bodies. Benefits are more easily perceived when products come from trusted sources or with messages from trusted sources.
Perceived risk is the primary determiner of the risk adjustment ratings [
80]. The participants’ perceived threats of pesticide use negatively influence their views and perceptions on pesticide benefits over their potential risks, which is in accordance with Huang’s (1993) [
75] findings. Perceived threats are associated with the concern that their health has been affected, feeling insecure for the health of their loved ones, and expression of worries for their health from the pesticide residues. Participants particularly agreed with the two last statements. This outcome implies that pesticide residues in food is an issue of concern for Greek consumers, linked directly to their health. This is in line with the previous Special Eurobarometer survey reports [
41]. It has been shown that individuals perceive greater control over biological food risks than chemical/technical risks [
34]. Attempts to explain the high ranking of risk perceptions of pesticide residues have been made by Dickson-Spillmann et al. (2011) [
76], who reported that consumers are dose–response insensitive, which, in turn, lead to higher risk perceptions of contaminants. This aspect has been also linked by Koch et al. (2017) [
50] to the lack of knowledge of the regulatory framework and the presence of legal limits of residues in food, while in the same line, the presence of a discrepancy between expert and lay views of chemical risks has been reported [
81]. This may explain the negative relationship that occurs in the PCA graph between perceived threats and consumers’ confidence in plant food safety and food certification procedures.
The Southern Greek geographic region seems to be a significant negative predictor of respondents’ views on pesticide benefits over their potential risks. This outcome should be expected due to higher perceived threats that participants of Southern Greek origin have expressed, compared to respondents from Central and Northern Greece. This result might be explained according to the findings of Hohl & Gaskell (2008) [
31], who reported that food risk perception is strongly associated with generalized risk sensitivity. Additionally, the fact that environmental groups and the media often play a watchdog role as Meagher (2019) [
34] states, may help explain this association with heightened concerns; research is needed to confirm this hypothesis.
The influence of a special plant-food consuming habit of the participants, which was associated with consumption of fruits and vegetables, following the traditional Greek cuisine, consumption of organically produced and of certified origin (PDA, PGI) agricultural products was not of significance concerning participants’ views on pesticides. This may be attributed to the fact that there were no significant differences found in special plant-food consuming habit between the two distinct clusters of participants. In a similar way, several other socioeconomic variables were not found to influence the respondents’ views on pesticides, such as education level, urban or rural areas of residence, the presence of minor children in the family, the availability of leisure time, smoking, vegetarian habits, physical activities, and profession.
Two distinct consumer groups were identified regarding participants’ perceptions on pesticide benefits versus their potential risks. In the first group, supporters of pesticide benefits over their potential threats have been classified. Consumers who fit this profile received information mainly from specialized and general sources of information, are in favor of pesticide use contributions, express confidence in plant-food safety and controlling procedures, are primarily males, farmers, self-employed persons, retired, and pesticide users. In the second group, non-supporters of the pesticide use benefits over the risks statement have been categorized. Consumers in this category get less frequently informed about pesticides, express lower confidence in plant-food safety, declare more intense perceived threats, are primarily females, mostly inhabitants of urban areas, largely are not users of pesticides, civil servants, private employees, unemployed persons, and university students.
Several limitations should be taken into account concerning our study. First, our results were obtained through web survey disseminated by email, Messenger, and Viber applications, hence, anyone unfamiliar with communication technology was inevitably excluded. These individuals might have a low educational level or belong to older age groups. Second, the data were collected from self-reporting opinions with no means of checking their veracity. Third, the sample was collected from all over Greece, however, it may not be representative in several aspects of the Greek population (i.e., education, occupation, age group >65 years etc.). Fourth, although information sources were investigated, the study did not address other possible sources of information on pesticides like friends and family, peers, other internet content, bloggers, influencers, participation in collectives, consumer associations, activist organizations, etc., which constitute a proposal that future studies should further explore these issues.