11 pages, This proof-of-concept study explores the innovative application of Large Language Models (LLMs) for qualitative analysis of feedback from an Extension program, addressing the challenge of efficiently analyzing qualitative data. The study juxtaposes traditional human-led qualitative analysis with Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven techniques, revealing the complementary strengths of human insights and AI efficiency. It underscores the potential of LLMs to enhance qualitative analysis while recognizing the need for human oversight to ensure depth and context accuracy. This research contributes to the fields of program evaluation and data analysis, offering a new paradigm for integrating advanced AI tools in qualitative research.
7 pgs, Extension is uniquely positioned to deliver data-driven solutions to complex community issues with University applied research, particularly through crises like COVID-19. Applying the Policy, Systems and Environmental (PSE) framework to community development is an effective, innovative approach in guiding Extension leaders to create, document, and share long-term transformative change on challenging issues with stakeholders. Beyond the public health sector, applying a PSE approach to community development provides leverage points for population-level benefits across sectors. This article describes current public health approaches, methodologies, and how the PSE framework translates to other programs with four examples of high-impact, systems level Extension projects.
8pgs, The agribusiness sector includes a diverse group of interests - crop producers, livestock and meat producers, poultry and egg companies, dairy farmers, timber producers, tobacco companies and food manufacturers and stores. The industry has new-found relevance going into 2019 as the trade war between China and the United States continues to rage leaving many in the business, especially soybean farmers, hurting.
The industry's giving reached its peak in the 2016 presidential cycle spending more than $118 million. The number fell in 2018 to more than $92 million, but was good for the third-highest spending cycle, and highest for a midterm, the industry has had.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 202 Document Number: D12151
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Online via AgriMarketing Weekly. 1 page., Data, analytics and technology company DTN acquires a global farm-level data source, Farm Market ID. Both share goals of helping agribusinesses support producers.
13 pages, via Online Journal, This paper contributes to our understanding of farm data value chains with assistance from 54 semi-structured interviews and field notes from participant observations. Methodologically, it includes individuals, such as farmers, who hold well-known positionalities within digital agriculture spaces—platforms that include precision farming techniques, farm equipment built on machine learning architecture and algorithms, and robotics—while also including less visible elements and practices. The actors interviewed and materialities and performances observed thus came from spaces and places inhabited by, for example, farmers, crop scientists, statisticians, programmers, and senior leadership in firms located in the U.S. and Canada. The stability of “the” artifacts followed for this project proved challenging, which led to me rethinking how to approach the subject conceptually. The paper is animated by a posthumanist commitment, drawing heavily from assemblage thinking and critical data scholarship coming out of Science and Technology Studies. The argument’s understanding of “chains” therefore lies on an alternative conceptual plane relative to most commodity chain scholarship. To speak of a data value chain is to foreground an orchestrating set of relations among humans, non-humans, products, spaces, places, and practices. The paper’s principle contribution involves interrogating lock-in tendencies at different “points” along the digital farm platform assemblage while pushing for a varied understanding of governance depending on the roles of the actors and actants involved.
4 pages, via Online journal, Bougainvillea (Bougainvillea sp.) plant inflorescence number will vary in response to multiple cues such as changes in temperature, water, light intensity, pruning, and photoperiod. Previous research reports that the application of plant growth regulators (PGRs) to bougainvillea grown under varying photoperiods improved inflorescence number, probably as a result of changes in gibberellic acid (GA) levels. There are many bioactive plant GAs, but we chose to investigate differences in gibberellic acid 3 (GA3) levels and inflorescence number in response to the application of ethephon (2-cholorethylphosponic acid) or abscisic acid (ABA) to ‘Afterglow’ bougainvillea (Bougainvillea ×buttiana) grown under 14-hour photoperiod [long-day (LD)] conditions. Plants were 5 inches tall with seven visible lateral nodes and were grown in a greenhouse in 4-inch pots filled with 5-mm coarse aquarium zeolite. Ethephon was applied as a foliar spray at 0.05, 0.07, 0.10, 0.15, or 0.20 mg/plant. ABA was applied as a soil drench at 1, 1.5, 3, 6, 8, or 10 mg/plant. Endogenous levels of GA3 were measured 1 and 48 days after treatment to calculate the change in GA3 (∆GA3). A short day (SD) control of 8 hours was included to measure differences in inflorescence number and ∆GA3 between photoperiods. ‘Afterglow’ plants grown under SD conditions had the greatest decrease in ∆GA3 (–1.09 µg·g–1) over 48 days and the most inflorescences (10.6) compared with LD control plants with a decrease in ∆GA3 of –0.09 µg·g–1 and fewer inflorescences (1.0). Plants grown under LD conditions and treated with 0.05 mg/plant ethephon had inflorescence numbers (9.6) and levels of ∆GA3 (–0.74 µg·g–1) similar to the SD control. As ethephon rate increased to more than 0.05 mg/plant, inflorescence number on LD plants decreased and ∆GA3 increased. Exogenous ABA rates of 1 mg/plant produced inflorescence numbers (1.4) and ∆GA3 (–0.10 µg·g–1) similar to the LD control. As the rate increased, ∆GA3 increased and inflorescence number decreased. Plants treated with ABA rates of 3 mg/plant and more were defoliated and had no inflorescences.
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.
28pgs, Technological advancement is seen as one way of sustainably intensifying agriculture. Scholars argue that innovation needs to be responsible, but it is difficult to anticipate the consequences of the ‘fourth agricultural revolution’ without a clear sense of which technologies are included and excluded. The major aims of this article were to investigate which technologies are being associated with the fourth agricultural revolution, as well as to understand how this revolution is being perceived, whether positive or negative consequences are given equal attention, and what type of impacts are anticipated. To this end, we undertook a content analysis of UK media and policy documents alongside interviews of farmers and advisers. We found that the fourth agricultural revolution is associated with emergent, game-changing technologies, at least in media and policy documents. In these sources, the benefits to productivity and the environment were prioritised with less attention to social consequences, but impacts were overwhelmingly presented positively. Farmers and advisers experienced many benefits of technologies and some predicted higher-tech futures. It was clear, however, that technologies create a number of negative consequences. We reflect on these findings and provide advice to policy-makers about how to interrogate the benefits, opportunities, and risks afforded by agricultural technologies.
18 pages., via online journal, As food products marketed as “gluten-free” become increasingly popular, many consumers start to exclude sources of gluten (e.g., wheat, barley, and rye) from their diets for both medical and non-medical purposes. The grain industry is facing a growing challenge to (re)boost consumers’ confidence in the healthiness and safety of its commodities. Using 561 participants recruited from the Amazon Mechanical Turk workers’ panel, this study implemented a 2 (pretzels vs. potato chips) * 2 (positive- vs. negative- frame) * 2 (wheat image vs. no wheat image) experiment to examine the effects of gluten-free labels on consumers’ perceived healthiness and safety of wheat, perceived benefits of labeled products, and their evaluation of the shown labels. Results showed that consumers evaluate the gluten-free labels most positively when they appear on products that could have contained gluten. For products that are naturally gluten-free, adding a gluten-free label only decreased consumers’ confidence in such labels. The presence of gluten-free labels increased consumers’ perceived benefits of the labeled products when they do not contain any misleading information (e.g., image of a wheat head). However, some gluten-free labels could have negative impacts on consumers’ perceptions of the healthiness and safety of wheat. Overall, food producers and marketers might have undervalued consumers’ literacy and overestimated their susceptibility to marketing strategies. We discussed the implications for food marketers, regulators, and communicators.
