8 pages, Cultured meat is a novel food technology that promises to produce meat in a more environmentally friendly and animal-friendly way. We conducted an internet survey in ten countries (Australia, China, England, France, Germany, Mexico, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and the US) with a total sample of 6128 participants. Results suggest that there are large cultural differences regarding the acceptance of cultured meat. French consumers were significantly less accepting of the idea than consumers in all other countries. Perceived naturalness of and disgust evoked by cultured meat were important factors in the acceptance of this novel food technology in all countries. Trust in the food industry, food neophobia and food disgust sensitivity indirectly and directly influenced the acceptance of cultured meat in almost all countries. In order to increase the acceptance of cultured meat, the similarity of cultured meat to traditional meat needs to be emphasized rather than the rather technical production process, which may evoke associations of unnaturalness and disgust.
4 pgs., Objective: The Western Center for Agricultural Health and Safety (WCAHS) at the University of California, Davis implemented a multifaceted rapid response to COVID-19 in the western United States. This paper describes the center's response from mid-March through June 30, 2020. Methods: A comprehensive needs assessment was conducted with agricultural stakeholders. Agriculture-specific COVID-19 resources were developed and disseminated, and a farmer/employer survey was launched. Results: The WCAHS COVID-19 resources web page, worksite checklist, and training guide were shared on over 50 web pages nationally. As of June 30, 2020, 282 online surveys have been received. Ongoing informal discussions with agricultural stakeholders indicate a disconnect between the experiences of farmers/employers and farmworkers in relation to COVID-19 prevention at the worksite. Initial survey responses indicate that implementing social distancing is one of the greatest challenges at the worksite. Confusion over local, state, and federal guidelines and which to follow is another concern. Conclusion: The WCAHS response to COVID-19, in close collaboration with agricultural stakeholders, represents a useful model for a rapid response to a public health crisis by regional centers. Key elements to its success include rapid personalized communication with a wide range of agricultural stakeholders, an actively engaged External Advisory Board, the development of industry-specific resources and information, recurring and iterative engagement with stakeholders as new COVID-19 information emerged and resources were developed, and the identification of the unique gap WCAHS was positioned to fill. The multipronged dissemination approach enhanced the reach of WCAHS COVID-19 resources.
Social Networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and WhatsApp are now becoming very popular tools that are used for sharing the latest and important farming based information in different part of India. These tools are now widely used by Agricultural Extension and Advisory services to interact with the farmers for exchanging agricultural related information in India. The most influential farmers in a network can disseminate the information to the less central farmers of the network. The extension functionaries that promote the agricultural innovation will share the information with the most central members which in turn will share it with maximum number of the members of a social network. Social Network Analysis (SNA) acts as an efficient analytical tool that helps us to understand the relationship between farmer stakeholders and the importance of a farmer's position in the entire network. In this paper, a structural analysis of the Social Network is performed over two datasets, namely, Facebook-like dataset and Twitter Lists dataset. Here, we have studied the importance of individual nodes in the network through various centrality measures. SNA properties like centralities are used to represent the most central nodes that can act as a good influence spreader in the network. In this paper, initially the k-core decomposition method is used to find a set of influential nodes among all the nodes in the network. It is done to reduce the computational time. Our simulation shows that the nodes with higher Page Rank centrality can activate more members in a network as compared to other centrality measures. For Information diffusion, we have used Linear Threshold (LT) Model to understand the influence spread of the central farmers in the network.
27 pages., The provision of information through mobile phone-enabled agricultural information services (m-Agri services) has the potential to revolutionise agriculture and significantly improve smallholder farmers’ livelihoods in Africa. Globally, the benefits of m-Agri services include facilitating farmers’ access to financial services and sourcing agricultural information about input use, practices, and market prices. There are very few published literature sources that focus on the potential benefits of m-Agri services in Africa and none of which explore their sustainability. This study, therefore, explores the evolution, provision, and sustainability of these m-Agri services in Africa. An overview of the current landscape of m-Agri services in Africa is provided and this illustrates how varied these services are in design, content, and quality. Key findings from the exploratory literature review reveal that services are highly likely to fail to achieve their intended purpose or be abandoned when implementers ignore the literacy, skills, culture, and demands of the target users. This study recommends that, to enhance the sustainability of m-Agri services, the implementers need to design the services with the users involved, carefully analyse, and understand the target environment, and design for scale and a long-term purpose. While privacy and security of users need to be ensured, the reuse or improvement of existing initiatives should be explored, and projects need to be data-driven and maintained as open source. Thus, the study concludes that policymakers can support the long-term benefit of m-Agri services by ensuring favourable policies for both users and implementers.
20 pages., Agricultural communication covers all kinds of human communications involving agriculture, food, natural resources and rural interests. Such communications exchange and deliver the information of the agricultural and natural resource industries to the right receivers through effective media. Storytelling in marketing is also a managerial application; it is a marketing strategy that includes the agricultural industry. While an increasing number of agricultural businesses are promoting the application of agricultural stories in marketing and facilitating increases in the consumption of agricultural products, few researchers have explicitly developed valid tools for measuring the constructs of agricultural stories. This study continued previous research on effective model of storytelling in agricultural marketing, with the aim of exploring the constructs of a good agricultural story and developing the “Agricultural Story Scale” to measure them. Thirteen items measuring three factors—authenticity, narrative, and protagonist’s distinctiveness—were confirmed to have satisfactory structural model fit. The findings of the study and recommendations that contribute to both theoretical and practical implications are reported.
Keywords: Agricultural Story; Agricultural Communication; Measurement; Storytelling; Storytelling in Marketing
