Farmers' satisfaction and preference assessment of a Welsh onion harvester

Abstract We performed a Customer Satisfaction (CS) Portfolio analysis targeted at farmers who had bought a Welsh onion harvester. Subsequently we also performed a conjoint analysis to assess farmers' preferences for simulated concepts of an improved harvester based on their likes and dislikes. Our results showed that farmers had high expectations of but low satisfaction with some attributes (e.g., price), while they had low expectations but high satisfaction with other attributes (e.g., earth separation performance). It also showed that the responding farmers with a greater area under cultivation were more interested in the size of the harvester and its working efficiency than in price. These results suggest ideas for machine development and improvement and their order of priority.