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2. Public communication of soil conservation practices: a large-scale content analysis of wisconsin’s agricultural trade publications
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Chen, K. (author) and Shaw, B. (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2022-02-10
- Published:
- USA: Soil and Water Conservation Society
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 205 Document Number: D12612
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Soil and Water Conservation
- Journal Title Details:
- V. 77, Iss. 2
- Notes:
- 14pgs, The adoption of soil conservation practices by farmers offers the potential to greatly improve soil health and water quality at large geographic scales. In considering the potential benefits of soil conservation practices to improve ecological outcomes on farms, it is important to ascertain where farmers get their information about soil conservation and what type of information they are exposed to and by whom. One primary way that farmers learn about soil conservation practices is via agricultural trade publications (ATPs). We conducted a content analysis using a computational text analysis method to analyze all the online soil conservation coverage from four influential ATPs in Wisconsin. We focused on 10 different soil conservation practices and found that the most frequently covered soil conservation practices were tillage, manure, and grazing. Additionally, we analyzed the thematic categories for how each soil conservation practice was covered in terms of agricultural, environmental and economic benefits. Generally, articles tended to mention environmental and economic benefits more than agricultural benefits across all soil conservation practices. We also unpacked the subcategories of environmental benefits using cover crops practice as an example to demonstrate how it was covered in terms of subcategories such as biodiversity, sustainability, climate change, water quality, and soil health. Our analysis also looked at how agricultural technology was featured in the stories about soil conservation and found that this category was regularly mentioned for each practice. Finally, we examined the message sources for stories on soil conservation and found that extension and the federal government were the most the frequently cited entities. We also discussed how this form of computational content analysis can provide longitudinal insights about trends in a particular soil conservation practice like cover crops, which showed a clear upward trend in coverage in ATPs for the time period studied. These nuanced content analyses provide insights into what types of thematic categories are featured about soil conservation practices covered in ATPs in Wisconsin. Advocates of soil conservation practices can use our results to determine if some practices could benefit from more attention in ATPs as well as which benefits and themes have received more media coverage. Additionally, stakeholders from entities that serve as different message sources can determine how their organizations are doing as the spokespeople for the soil conservation practices being advocated.
3. Seeing is not always believing: crop loss and climate change perceptions among farm advisors
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Niles, Meredith T. (author), Wiener, Sarah (author), Schattman, Rachel E. (author), Roesch-McNally, Gabrielle (author), and Reyes, Julian (author)
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2019-03-26
- Published:
- USA: IOP Publishing Ltd.
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 12 Document Number: D10345
- Journal Title:
- Environmental Research Letters
- Journal Title Details:
- 14(4)
- Notes:
- 11 pages., Via online journal article., As climate change is expected to significantly affect agricultural systems globally, agricultural farm advisors have been increasingly recognized as an important resource in helping farmers address these challenges. While there have been many studies exploring the climate change belief and risk perceptions as well as behaviors of both farmers and agricultural farm advisors, there are very few studies that have explored how these perceptions relate to actual climate impacts in agriculture. Here we couple survey data from United States Department of Agriculture farm service employees (n = 6, 514) with historical crop loss data across the United States to explore the relationship of actual climate-related crop losses on farm to farm advisor perceptions of climate change and future farmer needs. Using structural equation modelling we find that among farm advisors that work directly with farms on disaster and crop loss issues, there is a significant positive relationship between crop loss and perceived weather variability changes, while across all farm advisors crop loss is associated with reduced likelihood to believe in anthropogenic climate change. Further, we find that weather variability perceptions are the most consistently and highly correlated with farm advisors' perceptions about the need for farm adaptation and future farmer needs. These results suggest that seeing crop loss may not lead to climate change belief, but may drive weather variability perceptions, which in turn affect farm adaptation perceptions. This lends further evidence to the debate over terminology in climate change communication and outreach, suggesting that weather variability may be the most salient among agricultural advisors.
4. U.S. bread basket shifts thanks to climate change
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Heikkinen, Niina (author)
- Format:
- Online article
- Publication Date:
- 2015-12-23
- Published:
- United States: Springer Nature
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 34 Document Number: D10672
- Notes:
- 7 pages., via Scientific American website., Farming across the Midwest will be challenged by a shifting climate and may struggle to keep up crop production.