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2. Does risk communication really decrease cooperation in climate change mitigation?
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Farjam, Mike (author), Nikolaychuk, Olexandr (author), and Bravo, Giangiacomo (author)
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2018-07
- Published:
- Springer
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 18 Document Number: D10535
- Journal Title:
- Climatic Change
- Journal Title Details:
- 149:147–158
- Notes:
- 12 pages., via online journal., Effective communication of risks involved in the climate change discussion is crucial and despite ambitious protection policies, the possibility of irreversible consequences actually occurring can only be diminished but never ruled out completely. We present a laboratory experiment that studies how residual risk of failure of climate change policies affects willingness to contribute to such policies. Despite prevailing views on people’s risk aversion, we found that contributions were higher at least in the final part of treatments including a residual risk. We interpret this as the product of a psychological process where residual risk puts participants into an ”alarm mode,” keeping their contributions high. We discuss the broad practical implications this might have on the real-world communication of climate change.
3. Exchanging knowledge to improve organic arable farming:an evaluation of knowledge exchange tools with farmer groups across Europe
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Bliss, Katie (author), Susanne Padel (author), Beth Cullen (author), Charline Ducottet (author), Samantha Mullender (author), Ilse A. Rasmussen (author), and Bram Moeskops (author)
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2018-12
- Published:
- Springer
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 138 Document Number: D11505
- Journal Title:
- Organic Agriculture
- Journal Title Details:
- 9:383–398
- Notes:
- 16 pages., via online journal., Organic farming is knowledge intensive. To support farmers in improving yields and organic agriculture systems, there is a need to improve how knowledge is shared. There is an established culture of sharing ideas, successes and failures in farming. The internet and information technologies open-up new opportunities for knowledge exchange involving farmers, researchers, advisors and other practitioners. The OK-Net Arable brought together practitioners from regional Farmer Innovation Groups across Europe in a multi-actor project to explore how online knowledge exchange could be improved. Feedback from the groups was obtained for 35 ‘tools’, defined as end-user materials, such as technical guides, videos and websites informing about practices in organic agriculture. The groups also selected one practice to test on farms, sharing their experiences with others through workshops, exchange visits and through videos. Farmers valued the same key elements in face-to-face exchanges (workshops and visits) as in online materials. These were the opportunity for visual observation, deeper understanding of the context in which a practice was being tried and details about what worked and what did not work. Videos, decision support tools and social media can provide useful mechanisms for taking knowledge exchange online, enabling farmers and researchers to share experiences and practical implications. Visual information, economics, details of the context, successes and failures were considered to be critical factors in good knowledge exchange tools. Online platforms and forums should not be expected to replace but rather to complement face to face knowledge exchange in improving organic farming.
4. Farm households' simultaneous use of sources to access information on cotton crop production
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Yaseen, Muhammad (author), Ahmad, Mokbul Morshed (author), and Soni, Peeyush (author)
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2018
- Published:
- Taylor & Francis
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 18 Document Number: D10489
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Agricultural & Food Information
- Journal Title Details:
- 19(2): 149-161
- Notes:
- 14 pages., via online journal., This study has investigated farm households' simultaneous use of social networks, field extension, traditional media, and modern information and communication technologies (ICTs) to access information on cotton crop production. The study was based on a field survey, conducted in Punjab, Pakistan. Data were collected from 399 cotton farm households using the multistage sampling technique. Important combinations of information sources were found in terms of their simultaneous use to access information. The study also examined the factors influencing the use of various available information sources. A multivariate probit model was used considering the correlation among the use of social networks, field extension, traditional media, and modern ICTs. The findings indicated the importance of different socioeconomic and institutional factors affecting farm households' use of available information sources on cotton production. Important policy conclusions are drawn based on findings.
5. Farmers prevailing perception profiles regarding GM crops: a classification proposal
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Almeida, Carla (author) and Massarani, Luisa (author)
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2018
- Published:
- SAGE Journals
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 32 Document Number: D10598
- Journal Title:
- Public Understanding of Science
- Journal Title Details:
- 27(8), 952–966
- Notes:
- 15 pages., via online journal., Genetically modified organisms have been at the centre of a major public controversy, involving different interests and actors. While much attention has been devoted to consumer views on genetically modified food, there have been few attempts to understand the perceptions of genetically modified technology among farmers. By investigating perceptions of genetically modified organisms among Brazilian farmers, we intend to contribute towards filling this gap and thereby add the views of this stakeholder group to the genetically modified debate. A comparative analysis of our data and data from other studies indicate there is a complex variety of views on genetically modified organisms among farmers. Despite this diversity, we found variations in such views occur within limited parameters, concerned principally with expectations or concrete experiences regarding the advantages of genetically modified crops, perceptions of risks associated with them, and ethical questions they raise. We then propose a classification of prevailing profiles to represent the spectrum of perceptions of genetically modified organisms among farmers.
6. Farmers’ choice of market channels and producer prices in India: role of transportation and communication networks
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Negi, Digvijay S. (author), Birthal, Pratap S. (author), Roy, Devesh (author), and Khan, Md. Tajuddin (author)
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2018-12
- Published:
- Science Direct
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 12 Document Number: D10419
- Journal Title:
- Food Policy
- Journal Title Details:
- 81(106-121)
- Notes:
- 16 pages., Via online journal., This paper assesses the effect of transportation and communication networks on farmers’ choice of market channels for paddy and wheat, and subsequently on the prices they receive from these channels. It is found that smallholder farmers sell more to informal channels i.e. local traders and input dealers, and typically receive lower prices from them compared to the government-set minimum support prices (MSP). The prices realized from the sales in regulated markets are also less than the MSP despite these being claimed to be more transparent in price discovery. Econometric results show that farmers’ access to transportation and information enables them to obtain better price terms from informal as well as formal channels. The effect of information is relatively stronger, implying that farmers’ access to transportation itself is not sufficient but is effective when combined with provision of market information. Further, our proposition is that despite a positive impact of the improved market access on price realization from informal traders, farmer-trader relations are unlikely to undergo a meaningful change because of the tied transactions involving inputs, credit and outputs.
7. Farmers’ perception of water quality and risks in the Mashavera river basin, Georgia: analyzing the vulnerability of the social-ecological system through community perceptions
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Withanachchi, Sisira S. (author), Kunchulia, Ilia (author), Ghambashidze, Giorgi (author), Al Sidawi, Rami (author), Urushadze, Teo (author), and Ploeger, Angelika (author)
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2018-08-28
- Published:
- Switzerland: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 12 Document Number: D10388
- Journal Title:
- Sustainability
- Journal Title Details:
- 10(9)
- Notes:
- 26 pages., Via online journal., Competing natural resources usage that leads to dramatic land use changes can threaten the balance of a social-ecological system. When this is the case, communities are directly exposed to the negative consequences of those land use changes. The Mashavera River Basin is considered one of the hotspots of environmental pollution in Georgia. This is of importance for public health because the food production from this basin meets a substantial proportion of the country’s food demand. The farmers’ perception of the water quality and their perceived risks to the economy, health, and lifestyle reflect the status of the environmental and social conditions. The inclusion of farmers’ risk perceptions is an important stage of water quality governance that could enable active civic participation. The approach of this research study was the convergence model in the triangular design of the mixed method approach. As part of the social data, the research study was conducted with a survey of 177 households, for which agriculture was either a main or partial source of income. A few focus group discussions were also conducted. A binary logistic regression analysis was employed as the main method for the analysis. The results from the pollution load index (PLI) were used as the supportive data to verify some geospatial hypotheses. We found that aesthetic attributes (i.e., color changes observed in the river) and the source of the water contamination (i.e., mining sites) were the main predictor variables for a perceived risk to water quality, health, and livelihoods. The people who work in agriculture as the main income source had more concern about their ability to sell their agricultural products as a result of water contamination in the river, compared with people for whom agriculture is a secondary source of income or for self-consumption. Age, amount of land, years of agricultural experience, and the source of water supply for agriculture did not have a significant effect on any of the risk perception or water quality perception models. The results indicate that the health risk is perceived more strongly in areas with more heavily contaminated water compared to less polluted areas. We propose that conducting a public risk perception assessment is an ideal means to detect people’s concerns regarding water quality governance for future risk analysis in Georgia. Another recommendation of this study is an integrated model of risk assessment that combines the results from a public risk perception assessment and a technical assessment. The benefits of such an integrated assessment include finding new hazard-sensitive areas for further analysis, the possibility to cross-check data for verification, communal communication of hazardous conditions by utilizing local knowledge, and the direct participation of the community in monitoring risks.
8. Geographic information and communication technologies for supporting smallholder agriculture and climate resilience
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Haworth, Billy T. (author), Biggs, Eloise (author), Duncan, John (author), Wales, Nathan (author), Boruff, Bryan (author), and Bruce, Eleanor (author)
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2018-12-10
- Published:
- Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 12 Document Number: D10418
- Journal Title:
- Climate
- Journal Title Details:
- 6(4)
- Notes:
- 20 pages., Article 97, Via online journal., Multiple factors constrain smallholder agriculture and farmers’ adaptive capacities under changing climates, including access to information to support context appropriate farm decision-making. Current approaches to geographic information dissemination to smallholders, such as the rural extension model, are limited, yet advancements in internet and communication technologies (ICTs) could help augment these processes through the provision of agricultural geographic information (AGI) directly to farmers. We analysed recent ICT initiatives for communicating climate and agriculture-related information to smallholders for improved livelihoods and climate change adaptation. Through the critical analysis of initiatives, we identified opportunities for the success of future AGI developments. We systematically examined 27 AGI initiatives reported in academic and grey literature (e.g., organisational databases). Important factors identified for the success of initiatives include affordability, language(s), community partnerships, user collaboration, high quality and locally-relevant information through low-tech platforms, organisational trust, clear business models, and adaptability. We propose initiatives should be better-targeted to deliver AGI to regions in most need of climate adaptation assistance, including SE Asia, the Pacific, and the Caribbean. Further assessment of the most effective technological approaches is needed. Initiatives should be independently assessed for evaluation of their uptake and success, and local communities should be better-incorporated into the development of AGI initiatives
9. Information needs and information-seeking behaviors of urban food producers: implications for urban extension programs
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Kumudu P. P. Kopiyawattage (author), Laura A. Warner (author), and T. Grady Roberts (author)
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2018
- Published:
- USA: The American Association for Agricultural Education
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 149 Document Number: D10111
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Agricultural Education
- Journal Title Details:
- 59(3) : 229-242
- Notes:
- Via Online Journal, Extension is challenged with meeting the needs of a variety of stakeholders. As the country becomes more urban, Extension may need to adapt programming to reach new clients. Having an understanding about what, when, and how urban food producers gather information is important to address their needs. Information that is relevant, up-to-date, and meets clients’ needs, enables their ability to adopt new ideas and innovative technologies, providing more opportunities for success. A mixed-method research design explored the information needs and information-seeking behavior of urban food producers in Columbus, Ohio. Urban food producers in this study most needed information to increase food production. Respondents preferred to receive information from the Internet and other electronic media over conventional information sources. This group of urban producers trusted information from university and Extension sources, but expressed mixed opinions about their personal experiences with OSU Extension.
10. Listened to, but not heard! The failure to represent the public in genetically modified food policies
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Lassen, Jesper (author)
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2018
- Published:
- SAGE Journals
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 32 Document Number: D10595
- Journal Title:
- Public Understanding of Science
- Journal Title Details:
- 27(8), 923–936.
- Notes:
- 14 pages., via online journal., ‘In the mid-1990s, a mismatch was addressed between European genetically modified food policy, which focused primarily on risks and economic prospects, and public anxieties, which also included other concerns, and there was a development in European food policy toward the inclusion of what were referred to as “ethical aspects.” Using parliamentary debates in Denmark in 2002 and 2015 as a case, this article examines how three storylines of concern that were visible in public discourse at the time were represented by the decision makers in parliament. It shows that core public concerns raising fundamental questions about genetically modified foods, and in particular their perceived unnaturalness, were not considered in the parliamentary debates. It is suggested that the failure of the parliament to represent the public may undermine the legitimacy of politicians and lead to disillusionment with parliamentary government.