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44742. ‘Would it sell more pork?’ pig farmers’ perceptions of real welfare, the welfare outcome component of their farm assurance scheme
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Hockenhull, J. (author), Main, D.C.J. (author), and Mullan, S (author)
- Format:
- Journal Article
- Publication Date:
- 2019-05-20
- Published:
- Netherlands: Elsevier
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 206 Document Number: D12782
- Journal Title:
- Animal
- Journal Title Details:
- Volume 13, Issue 12, Pages 2864 - 2875
- Notes:
- 12pgs, In the UK, the pig industry is leading the way in the adoption of welfare outcome measures as part of their farm assurance scheme. The welfare outcome assessment (WOA), known as Real Welfare, is conducted by the farmers’ own veterinary surgeon. For the first time, this has allowed the pig industry to evaluate welfare by directly assessing the animal itself and to document the welfare of the UK pig industry as a whole. Farmer perspectives of the addition of a welfare outcome assessment to their farm assurance scheme have yet to be explored. Here, we investigate how the introduction of the Real Welfare protocol has been perceived by the farmers involved, what value it has (if any), whether any practical changes on farm have been a direct consequence of Real Welfare and ultimately whether they consider that the welfare of their pigs has been improved by the introduction of the Real Welfare protocol. Semi-structured interviews with 15 English pig farmers were conducted to explore their perceptions and experiences of the Real Welfare process. Our findings fall into three key areas: the lived experience of Real Welfare, on-farm changes resulting from Real Welfare and suggested improvements to the Real Welfare process as it currently stands. In all the three areas, the value farmers placed on the addition of WOA appeared to reflect their veterinary surgeon's attitude towards the Real Welfare protocol. If the vet was engaged in the process and actively included the farmer, for example through discussion of their findings, the farmers interviewed had a greater appreciation of the benefits of Real Welfare themselves. It is recommended that future similar schemes should work with veterinary surgeons to ensure their understanding and engagement with the process, as well as identifying and promoting how the scheme will practically benefit individual farmers rather than assuming that they will be motivated to engage for the good of the industry alone. Retailers should be encouraged to use Real Welfare as a marketing tool for pig products to enhance the perceived commercial value of this protocol to farmers.
44743. ‘You can't eat data’?: Moving beyond the misconfigured innovations of smart farming
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Fraser, Alistair (author)
- Format:
- Journal Article
- Publication Date:
- 2021-06-17
- Published:
- Netherlands: Elsevier
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 206 Document Number: D12812
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Rural Studies
- Journal Title Details:
- Volume 91, Pages 200 - 207
- Notes:
- 8pgs, This paper presents a critical examination of smart farming. I follow other critical analyses in recognizing the centrality of innovation processes in generating smart farming products, services, arrangements, and problematic outcomes. I subsequently use insights from critical human geography scholarship on the significance of understanding topological transformations to move beyond interpretations that identify only a narrow range of smart farming problems, such as a lack of coordination or limited uptake by farmers. Instead, I examine a broader set of challenges produced by smart farming developments. The overriding concern, I argue, is that smart farming unfolds via the production of numerous ‘misconfigured innovations.’ Using insights from literature on responsible research and innovation I then probe the stakes of looking beyond the misconfigured innovations of smart farming and discuss how new technologies might come to play a role in producing emancipatory smart farming. I pay attention to research on the ‘internet of people,’ which paints a stark new picture of social life generally, and in particular how rural life might be computed and calculated according to new conceptualizations of sociality and spatiality.
44744. “How can you put a price on the environment?” Farmer perspectives on stewardship and payment for ecosystem services
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- White, A.C. (author), Faulkner, D.S. (author), Mendex, V.E. (author), and Niles, M.T. (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2022-04-01
- Published:
- United States: Soil and Water Conservation Society
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 205 Document Number: D12529
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Soil and Water Conservation
- Journal Title Details:
- 41
- Notes:
- 14 pages, As agricultural conservation priorities evolve to address new complex social-ecological problems and emerging social priorities, new conservation incentive program participation and success can be enhanced by incorporating local stakeholder preferences into program design. Our research explores how farmers incorporate ecosystem services into management decisions, their willingness to participate in payment for ecosystem services programs, and factors beyond compensation level that would influence participation. We conducted three focus groups with 24 participants between January of 2019 and May of 2019 in Vermont. Our study revealed that a strong, intrinsic stewardship ethic motivates farmers to enhance ecosystem service provisioning from their farms, though financial pressures often limit decision-making. These results suggest that programs with sufficient levels of payment may attract participation, at least among some types of farmers, to enhance ecosystem services from farms in Vermont. However, farmers may be deterred from participating by perceived unfairness and distrust of the government based on previous experiences with regulations and conservation incentive structures. Farmers also expressed distrust of information about ecosystem services supply that conflicts with their perceptions of agroecosystem functioning, unless delivered by trusted individuals from the extension system. The delivery of context-specific information on how management changes impact ecosystem service performance from trusted sources could enhance farmers’ decisions, and would aptly complement payments. Additionally, farmers expressed a desire to see a program that both achieves additionality and rewards farms who have been stewards, goals that are potentially at odds. Our findings offer important insights for policy makers and program administrators who need to understand factors that will influence farmers’ willingness to participate in payment for ecosystem service programs and other conservation practice adoption initiatives, in Vermont and elsewhere.
44745. “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish”: how ethical beliefs influence consumer perceptions of “blue” aquaculture products?
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Banovic, Marija (author), Reinders, Machiel, J. (author), Claret, Anna (author), Guerrero, Luis (author), and Krystallis, Athanasios (author)
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2019
- Published:
- Elsevier
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 18 Document Number: D10530
- Journal Title:
- Food Quality and Preference
- Journal Title Details:
- 77: 147-158
- Notes:
- 12 pages., via online journal., Respecting ethical beliefs of consumers is an important precondition for food manufacturers in their attempt to improve their positioning in the European food market. Based on a cross-cultural survey of 2511 European participants, this research demonstrates how ethical beliefs affect consumer perceptions of “blue” (i.e. environmentally friendly) aquaculture products. The study further emphasises that the positive effect of ethical beliefs on purchase intention operates via an indirect route mediated by consumers’ trust in a product category. Consumer involvement has limited moderation effect on the above relationships. To expand its “blue” business, a key policy recommendation to aquaculture product manufacturers and policy makers is to urge stable and reliable standards of control in environmentally responsible aquaculture production so that consumers can rely on the information source and increase their trust in aquaculture products.
44746. “We need a better system” Maryland crop growers’ perspectives on reducing food loss through donation
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Ceryes, Caitlin A. (author), Heley, Kathryn (author), Edwards, Danielle M. (author), Gao-Rittenberg, Chergai (author), Seifu, Leah (author), Sohail, Saifra Khan (author), and Neff, Roni A. (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2023-06-30
- Published:
- USA: Thomas A. Lyson Center for Civic Agriculture and Food Systems
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 206 Document Number: D12953
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development
- Journal Title Details:
- V.12, N.4
- Notes:
- 18 pages, The donation of unharvested or unsold crops to rescue organizations has been promoted as a strategy to improve healthy food access for food insecure households while reducing production-level food loss and waste (FLW). In this study, we aimed to assess the motivations, barriers, and facilitators for crop donation as a FLW reduction strategy among Maryland farmers. We interviewed 18 Maryland-based food producers (nine frequent crop donors and nine infrequent, by self-report) in 2016 – 2017, soliciting their perspectives on crop donation motivators, process feasibility, and interventions aimed at increasing crop donation. The interviews were thematically coded. All respondents were aware of crop donation as an option, and most expressed interest in reducing FLW by diverting crop surpluses for human consumption. While financial barriers represented one aspect influencing donation decisions, respondents also cited convenience, process knowledge, and liability as key considerations. In contrast to frequent donors, many of whom considered donation a moral imperative, some infrequent donors questioned the expectation that they would donate crops without compensation. Both frequent and infrequent donors were aware of pro-donation tax incentives, and infrequent donors reported being unlikely to use them. This research demonstrates that crop donation motivations, barriers, and facilitators can be diverse. Given the existence of crop surpluses and their potential benefits as emergency food, our results suggest that multiple interventions and policies may contribute to incentivizing and facilitating crop donation (or enabling the purchase of surplus crops) rather than one-size-fits-all approaches. Our findings also highlight a need to prioritize crop recovery methods that enhance growers’ financial stability.