Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 83 Document Number: D10838
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Online from the Center for Food Integrity, Gladstone, Missouri. 2 pages., "New research shows a significant and growing group of health-conscious consumers is confused by the mixed messages they're receiving about the 'real deal' and the substitutes entering the market."
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 202 Document Number: D12115
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Online from website of the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism, Arizona State University, Phoenix, Arizona. 2 pages., Article cites definitions that include corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a sense of responsibility toward the community and the environment that companies incorporate into their business models. Includes resources that journalists can use to report on CSR. Identifies a source of data about the top 100 companies with the best CSR reputation.
Online from publisher. 2 pages., Author suggests that while many in the produce industry use "sustainability" and "stewardship" as interchangeable terms,they are not. "True sustainability is a mindset that is international in its approach, purposeful in the value it adds to all stakeholders, resource-optimized for operations, circular in thinking, supply chain resilient, ecologically friendly and culturally attuned."
14 pages, via online journal, Designing effective policies for economic development often entails categorizing populations by their rural or urban status. Yet there exists no universal definition of what constitutes an “urban” area, and countries alternately apply criteria related to settlement size, population density, or economic advancement. In this study, we explore the implications of applying different urban definitions, focusing on Tanzania for illustrative purposes. Toward this end, we refer to nationally representative household survey data from Tanzania, collected in 2008 and 2014, and categorize households as urban or rural using seven distinct definitions. These are based on official administrative categorizations, population densities, daytime and nighttime satellite imagery, local economic characteristics, and subjective assessments of Google Earth images. These definitions are then applied in some common analyses of demographic and economic change. We find that these urban definitions produce different levels of urbanization. Thus, Tanzania's urban population share based on administrative designations was 28% in 2014, though this varies from 12% to 39% with alternative urban definitions. Some indicators of economic development, such as the level of rural poverty or the rate of rural electrification, also shift markedly when measured with different urban definitions. The periodic (official) recategorization of places as rural or urban, as occurs with the decennial census, results in a slower rate of rural poverty decline than would be measured with time-constant boundaries delimiting rural Tanzania. Because the outcomes of analysis are sensitive to the urban definitions used, policy makers should give attention to the definitions that underpin any statistics used in their decision making.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: D10199
Notes:
ACDC houses page 1 of the 74-page posting. The full posting was retrieved from: revolvy.com/page/developmentcommunication, Definition posted in Wikipedia
12 pages, via Online Journal, Current, prevalent models of the food system, including complex-adaptive systems theories and commodity-as-relation thinking, have usefully analyzed the food system in terms of its elements and relationships, confronting persistent questions about a system’s identity and leverage points for change. Here, inspired by Heldke’s (Monist 101:247–260, 2018) analysis, we argue for another approach to the “system-ness” of food that carries those key questions forward. Drawing on Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory, we propose a model of the food system defined by the relational process of feeding itself; that is, the food system is made of feeding and only feeding, and system structures are produced by the coupling of that process to its various contexts. We argue that this approach moves us away from understandings of the food system that take structures and relations as given, and sees them instead as contingent, thereby helping to identify leverage points for food system change. The new approach we describe also prompts us as critical agrifood scholars to be constantly reflexive about how our analyses are shaped by our own assumptions and subjectivities.
Online via subscription. 5 pages., Article summarizes results of a survey among farmers and consumers conducted by Aimpoint Research for The Packer. Findings showed that growers believe they best understand sustainability while believing that very few if any food retailers and consumers completely understand it. Nearly two-thirds of surveyed consumers said they believed sustainability efforts from the food industry are a response to their demands rather than industry driven by industry while two-thirds of growers said they believe sustainability efforts are industry driven. Report also compared beliefs by growers and consumers about where they get sustainability information.
