10 pages, Enormous quantities of data are generated through social and online media in the era of Web 2.0. Understanding consumer perceptions or demand efficiently and cost effectively remains a focus for economists, retailer/consumer sciences, and production industries. Most of the efforts to understand demand for food products rely on reports of past market performance along with survey data. Given the movement of content-generation online to lay users via social media, the potential to capture market-influencing shifts in sentiment exists in online data. This analysis presents a novel approach to studying consumer perceptions of production system attributes using eggs and laying hen housing, which have received significant attention in recent years. The housing systems cage-free and free-range had the greatest number of online hits in the searches conducted, compared with the other laying hen housing types. Less online discussion surrounded enriched cages, which were found by other methods/researchers to meet many key consumer preferences. These results, in conjunction with insights into net sentiment and words associated with different laying hen housing in online and social media, exemplify how social media listening may complement traditional methods to inform decision-makers regarding agribusiness marketing, food systems, management, and regulation. Employing web-derived data for decision-making within agrifood firms offers the opportunity for actionable insights tailored to individual businesses or products.
MATEI, Daniela (author), BRUMĂ, Ioan Sebastian (author), TANASĂ, Lucian (author), and Senior Researcher, Ph.D., Romanian Academy -Iaşi Branch, Gh. Zane"Institute of Economic and Social Research
Researcher, Ph.D., Romanian Academy -Iaşi Branch, Gh. Zane"Institute of Economic and Social Research
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
2016
Published:
Romania: Apollonia University of Iasi, Communication Sciences Faculty
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 164 Document Number: D08309
21 pages, via Online Journal, This paper explores the role of regulation and legislation on influencing the development and diffusion of technologies and methods of crop production. To do this, the change in pesticide registration under European Regulation 1107/2009 ‘Placing Plant Protection Products on the Market’ was followed through the UK’s agricultural system of innovation. Fieldwork included: a series of interviews conducted with scientists, agronomists and industry organisations; a programme of visiting agricultural events; as well as sending an electronic survey to British potato growers. The innovation system is noted to have made the legislation less restrictive than originally proposed. The most notable system response to the legislation is the adjustment of agrochemical company pesticide discovery strategy and their expansion into biologically derived treatments. There have also been other innovation responses: agricultural seed companies have been breeding in pathogen resistance in their cultivars; agricultural consultancies are prepared to recommend pathogen-resistant seeds; scientists are using the change as justification for adopting their solutions; the agricultural levy boards funded research into off-label pesticide uses; and producers, potato growers in particular, have been seeking advice, but not changing their growing practices.
8 pages., Via Science Direct., This paper aims to use a comprehensive modeling framework to investigate the intention of Iranian livestock producers to deploy renewable energies on their farms to mitigate climate change. A survey was conducted in southern Iran using a random sample of farmers (n = 140). Structural equation modeling showed that attitude, moral norm, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control are significant predictors of farmers' intention to use renewable energies. Attitude was determined by positive affect and perceived benefits, and moral norm was determined by perceived benefits, perceived cost, and outcome efficacy. The findings not only have public policy implications for promoting the use of renewable energies by farmers in Iran, but also contribute to the literature on environmental psychology, renewable energy, and pro-environmental behavior in a non-Western country.
Via online issue. 3 pages., Summary of panel discussion at a Virtual Town Hall meeting of the Produce Marketing Association. Panelists noted how greenhouse technologies can soften the blow of climate change.
Knuth, Melinda (author), Behe, Bridget K. (author), Hall, Charles R. (author), Huddleston, Patricia (author), Fernandez, R. (author), and Texas A&M University
Michigan State University
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
2018-02
Published:
United States: American Society for Horticultural Science
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 11 Document Number: D10339
9 pages., Via online journal., Water is becoming scarcer as world population increases and will be allocated among competing uses. Some of that water will go toward sustaining human life, but some will be needed to install and support landscape plants. Thus, future water resource availability may literally change the American landscape. Recent research suggests that consumers’ attitudes and behavior toward potable water supplies have changed in other countries because of greater social awareness and increasingly widespread exposure to drought conditions. We conducted an online survey of 1543 U.S. consumers to assess their perceptions about landscape plants, the water source used to produce them, and plant water needs to become established in the landscape. Using two separate conjoint designs, we assessed their perceptions of both herbaceous and woody perennials. Consumers placed greater relative importance on water source in production over water use in the landscape for both herbaceous and woody perennials included in this study. They preferred (had a higher utility score for) fresh water over recycled water and least preferred a blend of fresh with recycled water for perennials and recycled water used for woody perennial production. In addition, the group that did not perceive a drought but experienced one placed a higher value (higher utility score) on nursery plants grown with fresh water compared with those which were actually not in drought and did not perceive one. Educational and promotional efforts may improve the perception of recycled water to increase the utility of that resource. Promoting the benefits of low water use plants in the landscape may also facilitate plant sales in times of adequate and low water periods.
Lombardi, Ginevra Virginia (author), Berni, Rossella (author), Rocchi, Benedetto (author), and Department of Economics and Management, University of Florence, Florence, Italy
Department of Statistics, Computer Science and Applications, University of Florence, Italy
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
2017-01-20
Published:
Italy: Elsevier Ltd.
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 163 Document Number: D08145
