9 pages., via online journal., Mobile apps such as social media have friendly attributes and unbiased usage across gender and age; and have become one of the most promising channels for dissemination of agricultural information. The current sources of agricultural information available to farmers do not allow a two-way flow of information and instant feedback. The information disseminated using such channels are generally not customized to specific farmers’ needs. Despite the availability of various mobile apps providing agricultural information, the adoption rate is too minimal. The aim of this study was to determine the usability attributes of social media influencing its adoption and use. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect data from a sample of 149 respondents. The respondents were selected through purposive sampling technique from a population comprising of farmers, extension staff, lecturers and students enrolled in agricultural courses participating in the Farm Attachment Program of Egerton University. Data collected was analysed using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) and probit regression was used to analyse expected probability of social media adoption. The findings indicate that the main usability attributes of social media are Ease of use, usefulness, credibility, flexibility and Internet availability. Mobile apps being used to disseminate agricultural information should incorporate some of the usability attributes that have significantly influenced the adoption and use of social media to enhance its uptake and use.
Parks, Courtney A. (author), Jaskiewicz, Lara J. (author), Dombrowski, Rachael D. (author), Frick, Hollyanne E. (author), Hortman, Sarah B. (author), Trumbull, Elissa (author), Hesterman, Oran B. (author), and Yaroch, Amy L. (author)
Format:
Online journal article
Publication Date:
2018-04-27
Published:
USA: SAGE Journals
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 11 Document Number: D10342
7 pages., Via online journal., To characterize participants of a statewide healthy food incentive program in terms of shopping behaviors, surveys were collected at farmers markets (N = 436) and grocery stores (N = 131). Farmers market and grocery store respondents were mostly forty-five to fifty-four years old (21 percent to 24 percent) and female (72 to 82 percent). Grocery store respondents were more diverse. Farmers market participants were more likely to be female (p = .011), not have children (p = .006), and traveled further compared to grocery store participants. As healthy food incentive programs expand, participant characteristics should inform tailored outreach to expand to diverse populations to have a greater public health impact.
Chrisinger, Benjamin W (author), Kallan, Michael J. (author), Whiteman, Eliza D. (author), Hillier, Amy (author), and Standford University
University of Pennsylvania
Format:
Online journal article
Publication Date:
2018-03-16
Published:
United States: Elsevier
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 133 Document Number: D11387
7 pages., via online journal, Food shopping decisions are pathways between food environment, diet and health outcomes, including chronic diseases such as diabetes and obesity. The choices of where to shop and what to buy are interrelated, though a better understanding of this dynamic is needed. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's nationally representative Food Acquisitions and Purchase Survey food-at-home dataset was joined with other databases of retailer characteristics and Healthy Eating Index-2010 (HEI) of purchases. We used linear regression models with general estimating equations to assess relationships between trip, store, and shopper characteristics with trip HEI scores. We examined HEI component scores for conventional supermarkets and discount/limited assortment retailers with descriptive statistics. Overall, 4962 shoppers made 11,472 shopping trips over one-week periods, 2012–2013. Trips to conventional supermarkets were the most common (53.6%), followed by supercenters (18.6%). Compared to conventional supermarkets, purchases at natural/gourmet stores had significantly higher HEI scores (β = 6.48, 95% CI = [4.45, 8.51], while those from “other” retailers (including corner and convenience stores) were significantly lower (−3.89, [−5.87, −1.92]). Older participants (versus younger) and women (versus men) made significantly healthier purchases (1.19, [0.29, 2.10]). Shoppers with less than some college education made significantly less-healthy purchases, versus shoppers with more education, as did households participating in SNAP, versus those with incomes above 185% of the Federal Poverty Level. Individual, trip, and store characteristics influenced the healthfulness of foods purchased. Interventions to encourage healthy purchasing should reflect these dynamics in terms of how, where, and for whom they are implemented.
3 pages., via online journal., We often wonder why many a time our policies defy logic and our engineering designs lack a human element. There is no dearth of advances in scientific research and technologies. However, the large‐scale implementation of this knowledge and capacity on the field lags behind several decades in some regions. Unfortunately, the farmers not always benefit from these, least on the large‐scale. Well, the mystery may lie in the underlying communication processes that are supposed to be part of designing policies, institutions, engineering infrastructure, machines, products or any man‐made thing or rule. Or, sometimes it may be just due to a complete lack of any such processes during the design phase. Obviously, agricultural water management (AWM) for food production, particularly in many developing countries, is no exception to this phenomenon.
16 pages, via online journal article, This study examined the online content of interdisciplinary agricultural center webpages. Content modification dates, mission statements, and content were determined through a content analysis. Many of the websites did not mention a modification date for the content, while many websites had outdated content mostly older than six months. More than two-thirds of the websites provided PDFs that visitor could download to learn more about topics, by many of the websites lacked any media element that was being coded. Additionally, many websites did not use multiple forms of media. More than half of the websites were coded as lacking any social media content or plugins, but out of the websites that did include social media content, Facebook was the most prevalent. The commonalities between the center’s mission displayed on the website and the content theme were analyzed and chi-square tests provided the degree of association. A significant association existed and an alignment between communication strategies and missions of the centers was concluded, which is important when organizations communicate about agricultural science as indicated by previous literature. It is recommended that centers communicate via their websites in a timely manner and allow modification times to be seen to viewers to show their information is up-to-date. Website media content should also be diversified and communicators of these centers should explore the unique communication opportunities provided by social media. Future research should explore the target audience of interdisciplinary agricultural centers and should analyze the messages centers are using to communicate with those audiences.
15 pages., via online journal., Jeju, an island in Korea, became a place to site wind turbines with an unusually high level of public acceptance. Based on interviews, media analyses, and policy research, we found that the collective memory of socio-economic deprivation enabled community engagement to matter to residents, the provincial government, and environmental activists. It was within socio-historically contextualized processes of articulating the vision of a “good” society that an actual form of community engagement, however inadequate it might appear to some, became relevant to stakeholders in a particular locality. We emphasize that community engagement in renewable energy governance does not have one but multiple and situated ways of mattering depending on local contexts.
19 pages., via online journal., The following study looks at how traditional, organic, cooperative farmers
starting a new farming cooperative in the US Southwest communicate
about their farming as a set of (sustainable) cultural practices. The study
draws on environmental communication theory, the theory of the
coordinated management of meaning, and Vandana Shiva’s three-tiered
economic model to construct a communication-based framework
through which to view farmers’ stories about sustainability. This
framework is productive, showing how some Nuevo Mexicano farmers
(and others) orient toward farming, sustenance, and human-nature
relationships through community, family, heritage, and education.
Moreover, in addition to a conceptualization of sustainability as specific
practices for nurturing and enduring in environments, communities, and
organizations/institutions, sustainability can be understood as
embedded ecocultural and historical experience with cross-cultural
parallels in land-based communities. This study advances the ethical
duty of environmental communication to better understand the ways in
which environmental discourse and ecocultural and material realities are
imbricated, as well as the call for such discursive study to be grounded
in phenomenological experience of the natural world.
