Conventional or organic wine production? Establishing the hierarchy of values in the producers decision-making model

Purpose: The aim of this article is to understand how Polish winemakers make decisions about the type of production; to identify barriers of implementation of organic practices organic, to understand the values that are behind the decision-making process in the context of the three areas of sustainable development and present recommendations in relation to the conclusions. Design/methodology/approach: Methodological approach is based on Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP). The study included 18 values grouped according to belonging to the environmental, social and economic area. The importance of each value was compared by the respondents with the other values, which allowed to understand the course of the decision-making process in the context of the goals and importance of environmental, social and economic values represented by organic and conventional winemakers. Findings: The research revealed significant differences in the approach to the environmental and economic values. Conventional and organic winemakers differ in the hierarchy of values in the context of the triad of sustainable development (economy, society, environment), and the key values taken into account by conventional winemakers are pecuniary values, in contrast to organic winemakers, for whom non-economic values are key, in particular from the area of environmental issues. Organic production is perceived by the surveyed winemakers in ideological rather than business terms. Conventional winemakers see the organic production as more complicated and problematic. Practical implications: This is a significant problem showing the lack of education and awareness in relation to the theory and practice of an organic production. This situation should be alarming for agricultural advisory institutions and the entities of administration responsible for the implementation of sustainable development assumptions. Originality/value: This paper fills a gap in literature science, by the Authors' knowledge, this is the first article to use the AHP method to determine how winemakers make decisions about the type of production.