10 pages., Via online journal., Development of natural resource user typologies has been viewed as a potentially
effective means of improving the effectiveness of natural resource management engagement
strategies. Prior research on Corn Belt farmers’ perspectives on climate change employed
a latent class analysis (LCA) that created a six-class typology—the Concerned, Uneasy,
Uncertain, Unconcerned, Confident, and Detached—to develop a better understanding of
farmer perspectives on climate change and inform more effective climate adaptation and
mitigation outreach strategies. The LCA employed 34 variables that are generally unobservable—beliefs about climate change, experience with extreme weather, perceived risks of
climate change, and attitudes toward climate action—to identify types. The research reported
in this paper builds on this typology of Corn Belt farmers by exploring 33 measures of observable farm enterprise characteristics, land management practices, and farmer demographics to
assess whether variations in these observable characteristics between the six farmer classes
display systematic patterns that might be sufficiently distinctive to guide audience segmentation strategies. While analyses detected some statistically significant differences, there were
few systematic, meaningful observable patterns of difference between groups of farmers with
differing perspectives on climate change. In other words, farmers who believe that anthropogenic climate change is occurring, that it poses risks to agriculture, and that adaptive action
should be taken, may look very much like farmers who deny the existence of climate change
and do not support action. The overall implication of this finding is that climate change
engagement efforts by Extension and other agricultural advisors should use caution when
looking to observable characteristics to facilitate audience segmentation. Additional analyses
indicated that the farmer types that tended to be more concerned about climate change and
supportive of adaptive action (e.g., Concerned and Uneasy) reported that they were more
influenced by key private and public sector actors in agricultural social networks. On the
other hand, farmers who were not concerned about climate change or supportive of adaptation (e.g., the Unconcerned, Confident, and Detached groups, comprising between one-third
and one-half of respondents) were less integrated into agricultural networks. This suggests that
Extension and other agricultural advisors should expand outreach efforts to farmers who are
not already within their spheres of influence.
13 pages, Online via UI Library electronic subscription, Described the mutually perceived influence of bankers and insurers on their agricultural clients' decision-making regarding health and safety. Authors concluded that insurers and bankers may prove both positive and negative, as farmers may be skeptical about the intention of the incentives, making messaging critical.
10 pages., via online journal., Uncertainty, insufficient information or information of poor quality, limited cognitive capacity and time, along with value conflicts and ethical considerations, are all aspects that make risk management and risk communication difficult. This paper provides a review of different risk concepts and describes how these influence risk management, communication and planning in relation to forest ecosystem services. Based on the review and results of empirical studies, we suggest that personal assessment of risk is decisive in the management of forest ecosystem services. The results are used together with a review of different principles of the distribution of risk to propose an approach to risk communication that is effective as well as ethically sound. Knowledge of heuristics and mutual information on both beliefs and desires are important in the proposed risk communication approach. Such knowledge provides an opportunity for relevant information exchange, so that gaps in personal knowledge maps can be filled in and effective risk communication can be promoted.
11 pages., Online from journal by open access., Researchers surveyed residents of the wildland-urban interface to determine the effects of contextual factors such as location of the forest, its primary use, wildfire history, and current fire conditions on acceptability of prescribed burning, mechanical thinning, and doing nothing.
24 pages., Via online journal., We examined the relationship between attitudes toward urban ecological restoration and cognitive (perceived outcomes, value orientation, and objective knowledge), affective (emotional responses), and behavioral factors using residents of the Chicago Metropolitan Region. Positive and negative attitudes were both related to perceived outcomes of ecological restoration. In addition, positive attitudes were related to values while negative attitudes were related to emotions. Attitudes of high and low importance groups were connected to perceived outcomes of ecological restoration; however, attitudes of the high importance group were also related to values, emotions, and behavior. Positive and negative attitude groups differed on perceived outcomes, basic beliefs, knowledge, and behavior. Implications lie in understanding of complex attitudes toward natural resource issues and improved communication efforts to influence or educate the public.
11 pages., via online journal., Climate change impacts will affect grassland farming in various ways in the future. Communication and knowledge transfer are crucial to implement on-farm adaptation measures required to meet these challenges in a timely way. Therefore, we need to know how grassland farmers perceive climate change and which factors influence their attitude. We hypothesized that besides direct factors such as region, farm size, age and education, farmers’ socio-cultural background and their beliefs and attitudes are most important in their reaction to climate change. To investigate this, we conducted a survey with extensive on-farm interviews (n = 82) in four distinctive regions in the North German Plain on a gradient from sub-maritime to areas with sub-continental climate. We found that with a more continental climate and less rainfall and with increasing farm size, grassland farmers were more aware of the implications of climate change. In a second step, to categorize the influence of personal beliefs on decisions concerning farming, we applied the typology approach and distinguished four farming styles. Farmers in the four groups differed in terms of climate change awareness and adaptation preferences (P < 0.05). Yield Optimizers and Modernists were more open-minded to rational and economic facts and showed a significantly greater willingness to implement adaptation measures than Idealists and Traditionalists, who need to be addressed at a more emotional level. The results of this study may contribute to the development of better‐targeted adaptation policies that will serve specific groups of farmers more effectively.
Via UI online subscription., The foodservice industry generates food waste by disposing of unserved food in the kitchen as well as uneaten food from consumers’ plates. In all-you-care-to-eat dining settings, such as university dining halls or buffet-style restaurants, food waste can be problematic because there is little monetary incentive to take less food. In addition, university dining facilities primarily serve young consumers who tend to be more wasteful than the average adult, further increasing the likelihood of waste. Appeals to money-saving have generally been identified as the best motivator to reduce consumer food waste; however, alternative motivators are needed when the quantity of food and its associated cost are not directly linked in all-you-care-to-eat settings. The purpose of this study is to determine the efficacy of a food waste reduction campaign in a university dining hall. Consumer plate waste was collected, sorted, and weighed in a treatment and comparison dining hall for a semester to assess the impact of the campaign on the quantity and type of food waste. Results reveal that the campaign had a modest, though insignificant, impact on waste behavior, but there were changes in students’ beliefs related to food waste, which may be an important first step to achieving behavioral change.
Goldberg, Matthew H. (author), Van der Linden, Sander (author), Ballew, Matthew T. (author), Rosenthal, Seth A. (author), Gustafson, Abel (author), Leiserowitz, Anthony (author), and Yale University
University of Cambridge
Format:
Online journal article
Publication Date:
2019-10-01
Published:
United States: SAGE Journals
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 121 Document Number: D11064
14 pages, via online journal, Research on the gateway belief model indicates that communicating the scientific consensus on global warming acts as a “gateway” to other beliefs and support for action. We test whether a video conveying the scientific consensus on global warming is more effective than a text transcript with the same information. Results show that the video was significantly more effective than the transcript in increasing people’s perception of scientific agreement. Structural equation models indicate indirect increases in the beliefs that global warming is happening and is human-caused, and in worry about global warming, which in turn predict increased global warming issue priority.
