Young farmers' perceived service quality of the Greek Ministry of Agriculture: A SERVQUAL approach

The Greek State, through the Ministry of Rural Development and Food (MRDF) offers different types of public services for rural development to farmers and especially young farmers. The evaluation of these services is of critical importance for the government, concerning the adopted policy and the farmers themselves. In this study, SERVQUAL instrument has been used in a sample of 146 young farmers participating in the measure 112 'Setting up of young farmers' (Common Agricultural Policy, Pillar II), in order to explore their expectations, their perceptions and, through them, the service quality provided by the Ministry of Rural Development and Food in central Macedonia-Greece. The results indicate that the level of quality of the services provided by the ministry is not satisfactory. These quality gaps are observed in quality characteristics concerning the "social skills" of the MRDF's employees.