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2. Maintaining trust and credibility in a continuously evolving organic food system
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Thorsø, Martin Hvarregaard (author) and Department of Agroecology, Aarhus University, TjeleDenmark
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2015-08
- Published:
- Springer Netherlands
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 7 Document Number: D10269
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics
- Journal Title Details:
- 28(4) : 767-787
- Notes:
- 21 pages., Credibility is particularly important in organic food systems because there are only marginal visual and sensorial differences between organic and conventionally produced products, requiring consumers to trust in producers’ quality claims. In this article I explore what challenges the credibility of organic food systems and I explore how credibility of organic food systems can be maintained, using the Danish organic food system as a case study. The question is increasingly relevant as the sale of organic food is growing in Denmark as well as globally, and consumers’ expectations of organics continuously evolve. The inquiry is threefold, first I outline a conceptual framework for understanding trust and credibility in the food system, secondly I explore the developments in Danish organic food systems and thirdly discuss the challenges and opportunities for maintaining trust in the Danish organic food system. In the analysis I indicate eight key challenges: (1) unrealistic expectations, (2) blind trust and little motivation for extending their knowledge, (3) consumers assess the overall credibility of organic products, (4) ambitious ethical principles, (5) new consumer groups introduce new expectations, (6) frozen requirements in a changing world, (7) growing imports and labelling and (8) multiple versions of organics and the diversity is growing, as well as four aspects which may maintain the credibility of organics if implemented: (1) coordinate expectations, (2) communicate requested information, (3) institutional reform and (4) open communication of pros and cons of organic production.
3. The culture of nature: the environmental communication of gardening bloggers
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Graf, Heike (author)
- Format:
- Book chapter
- Publication Date:
- 2016
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: D08815
- Notes:
- Pages 105-136 in Heike Graf (ed.), The environment in the age of the internet: activists, communication, and the digital landscape. United Kingdom: Open Book Publishers, Cambridge. 175 pages.
4. Towards sustainable consumption: Keys to communication for improving trust in organic foods
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Vega-Zamora, Manuela (author), Torres-Ruiz, Francisco Jose (author), and Parras-Rosa, Manuel (author)
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2019-04
- Published:
- Spain: Science Direct
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 7 Document Number: D10293
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Cleaner Production
- Journal Title Details:
- 216 : 511-519
- Notes:
- 9 pages., Via online journal., Lack of trust is thought to be one of the most significant barriers to the consumption of organic foods, which is an important dimension of sustainable behaviour. Building trust in organic foods is the central objective of this paper. Based on information processing models focusing on what message to transmit and how, and on the premise that to improve trust, two different dimensions (functionality and authenticity) must be managed simultaneously, this paper analyzes the comparative effectiveness of different combinations of message arguments, forms of appeal and sources on consumer trust. To this end, an experiment was designed with a total of 800 participants, in which 36 different treatments were tested. The results show strong interactions between the three variables considered and suggest that the most effective combinations for building trust are: the health argument put across by an expert, the authenticity argument transmitted by a producers’ union, the elitist argument made by an expert and lastly, the social argument transmitted by a public authority, using an emotional form of appeal in all four cases. These results serve to complete the previous literature on the subject, in which communication activities are recommended but the questions of what to say, how to say it and who should say it are not specifically addressed.