23 pages., Via online., Content analysis showed that "the period following implementation of the National Organic Program exhibits a general upward trend in usage of health-related cues but minimal increase in use of terms associated with the 'organic' ideal."
14 pages., CONTEXT
The U.S. has the world's largest organic food market. However, low domestic production and a low adoption rate of organic grain farming limit the overall development of this sector. Multiple organic stakeholders have called for a better understanding of cognitive and motivational aspects of farmers' decision-making processes to help policymakers, agricultural scientists, and extension practitioners to work more effectively with farmers to explore and adopt organic grain production.
OBJECTIVE
This paper assesses farmers' adoption motivations, long-term goals, and perceived benefits to examine the congruence between initial motivations, long-term goals, and current perceived benefits.
METHODS
We employed a sequential mixed-method approach that first interviewed organic farmers in Iowa, U.S. Then developed and administered a statewide survey for the organic farmers. Survey data were analyzed with confirmatory factor analysis, paired-samples t-tests, and heteroskedasticity-robust regression models.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
We identified five highly-rated motivations for farmers to adopt organic grain: 1) profitability, 2) personal safety, 3) natural resources stewardship, 4) consumers and public health, and 5) honor and tradition. We found organic farmers' long-term goals are strongly orientated to both productivism and stewardship but less strongly oriented to civic-mindedness. This research assessed five areas of benefits associated with organic grain farming: 1) economic benefit, 2) addressed health concerns, 3) environmental natural resources, 4) values and beliefs validation, and 5) social benefit. This study found the benefits farmers experienced by adopting organic grain farming aligned with most of their original adoption motivations and long-term goals, except for serving the motivation of consumer and public health concerns.
8 pages, As Extension professionals are increasingly tasked with moving beyond program delivery into the murky realm of systems change, networks represent an essential organizing framework for this transition. In this article, we examine the ways in which networks are becoming a modern mode for social change. By providing examples from our work with food networks, we demonstrate how these collaborative approaches can produce a greater impact for Extension and the communities we serve. Lastly, we discuss the critical characteristics of successful networks and the role Extension can play in their optimization.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 146 Document Number: D06623
Notes:
Presentation at a conference, "Concentration in agriculture: how much, how serious and why worry" at Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, February 4, 2003. 18 pages.
12 pages, Food waste and food insecurity are two concurrent major public health issues. To address them, gleaning programs can reduce waste and enhance food security by diverting produce to food pantries. To understand the experiences of farmers and gleaning programs, interviews were completed with 12 farmers who had participated in a gleaning program and 16 farmers who had not donated produce through a gleaning program within the Greater Kansas City metro area. For farmers who had participated in the gleaning program, the ease of donating and tax incentives were primary benefits. Inadequate experience and inefficient volunteers were cited as challenges. Farmers without experience with gleaning programs cited safety and liability issues as concerns. Because farmers communicate frequently with other farmers, food rescue organizations should consider enlisting their support. Communities and government agencies should provide financial support to improve the resources and infrastructure of gleaning organizations to improve farmer-gleaner relationships.
Via online issue. 2 pages., Describes recent experience in which a packing house fire resulted in lower fed cattle prices and higher values of choice boxed beef cutout values - resulting in frustration and anger in cattle country.
Via online from publisher., "The Front Gate" editorial confronts advertising campaign of Burger King based on misleading, inaccurate information about the role of cattle in generating global greenhouse gas emissions.
Online from publisher., Brief report and analysis of research published by the National Academy of Sciences showing a strong positive relationship between meatpacking plants and local community transmission. "...the risk of excess death primarily came from large meatpacking plants operated by industry giants." Communities that shut down slaughterhouses reduced spread.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: D09233
Notes:
Research poster presented at the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association annual meeting, Chicago, Illinois, July 30-August 1, 2017. 2 pages., Findings indicate that online advertising of alcohol weakens the effectiveness of alcohol marketing restrictions.
Hirsch, Darya (author), Heuschkel, Zoe (author), and Terlau, Wiltrud (author)
Format:
Paper
Publication Date:
2018
Published:
Germany
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 106 Document Number: D10930
Notes:
2018 International European Forum (163rd EAAE Seminar), February 5-9, 2018, Innsbruck, Austria. International European Forum on System Dynamics and Innovation in Food Networks. 5 pages., Urban food systems consist of many stakeholders with different perspectives, different interests and different governance tools. This study aimed at developing potential future scenarios for the food system of Cologne by analysing the system with a Delphi approach. In our research-design, the suitability of the Delphi-method was evaluated not only as a tool for future modelling and scenario design, but also as a communication tool among the group of participants on a multistakeholder platform. As a case study, the Food Policy Council of Cologne, Germany was used. Cologne can be seen as a forerunner among German cities in the development of a new urban food policy. Some of the successful steps to re-envisioning food as an urban system include joining the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact, the decision of the City Council to become an edible city and the establishment of a Food Policy Council. For the study it was important to capture participants’ visions of a common goal regarding the governance of the urban food system and also to identify mental ‘silos’. It was obvious that the municipality of Cologne together with the Food Policy Council made great efforts towards participatory processes to build a vision for a sustainable and regional food supply. However, many stakeholder-groups in the process still work exclusively among themselves and do not actively practice the confrontation with the viewpoints of other relevant groups. This supports the maintenance of ‘silos’ and leaves little room for face-to-face discussions. Therefore, the primary aim of this study is to explore key components of food provisioning in the future for Cologne while confronting all stakeholders (municipal administration and politicians, farmers and food activists) with the perspectives of all group members. We used a multi-stakeholder Delphi approach with 19 panellists to find out essential components of the municipal regional food provisioning system in Cologne. Unique in this Delphi study is the bringing together of municipal administration, regional urban farmers and food activists. The research is still on-going, but preliminary results show that more communication among all relevant actors, especially horizontally among different city departments, in the urban food system is needed.
19 pages., Authors scanned literature in nine food systems journals to identify and characterize instances of "food waste" and "food loss" mentions. Findings indicated that this topic is growing within food studies but is still a marginal concept. They suggested three potential areas of food systems research to help advance the discourse and progress in reducing food loss and wastage.
7 pages, Many current food systems are unsustainable because they cause significant resource depletion and unacceptable environmental impacts. This problem is so severe, it can be argued that the food eaten today is equivalent to a fossil resource. The transition to sustainable food systems will require many changes but of particular importance will be the harnessing of internet technology, in the form of an ‘Internet of Food’, which offers the chance to use global resources more efficiently, to stimulate rural livelihoods, to develop systems for resilience and to facilitate responsible governance by means of computation, communication, education and trade without limits of knowledge and access. A brief analysis of the evidence of resource depletion and environmental impact associated with food production and an outline of the limitations of tools like life cycle assessment, which are used to quantify the impact of food products, indicates that the ability to combine data across the whole system from farm to human will be required in order to design sustainable food systems. Developing an Internet of Food, as a precompetitive platform on which business models can be built, much like the internet as we currently know it, will require agreed vocabularies and ontologies to be able to reason and compute across the vast amounts of data that are becoming available. The ability to compute over large amounts of data will change the way the food system is analysed and understood and will permit a transition to sustainable food systems.
