27 pages, Precision agriculture, which has existed for over four decades, ensures efficient use of agricultural resources for increased productivity and sustainability with the use of technology. Due to the lingering perception that the adoption of precision agriculture has been slow, this study examines public thoughts on the practice of precision agriculture by employing social media analytics. A machine learning-based social media analytics tool—trained to identify and classify posts using lexicons, emoticons, and emojis—was used to capture sentiments and emotions of social media users towards precision agriculture. The study also validated the drivers and challenges of precision agriculture by comparing extant literature with social media data. By mining online data from January 2010 to December 2019, this research captured over 40,000 posts discussing a myriad of concerns related to the practice. An analysis of these posts uncovered joy as the most predominant emotion, also reflected the prevalence of positive sentiments. Robust regulatory and institutional policies that promote both national and international agenda for PA adoption, and the potential of agricultural technology adoption to result in net-positive job creation were identified as the most prevalent drivers. On the other hand, the cost and complexity of currently available technologies, as well as the need for proper data security and privacy were the most common challenges present in social media dialogue.
Allen, John C. (author), Cordes, Sam (author), Smith, Amy M. (author), Spilker, Matt (author), Hamilton, Amber (author), and The Center for Rural Community Revitalization and Development
Format:
Research report
Publication Date:
2002-07
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: C29239
Notes:
Posted online at http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/caripubs/37/
35pgs, The idea that citizens' support for environmental policies depends on their economic interest and the community that one lives in, has been debated extensively in the environmental attitudes literature. However, this literature has not differentiated between separate policy dimensions that concern measures that affect specific groups in different ways. This paper differentiates between a nature/agriculture dimension that divides those who prioritize the agrarian interest from those who prioritize the protection of nature and a climate/energy dimension that divides those who prioritize industrial interest from those who prioritize fighting climate change, using a new survey in the Netherlands (N = 11,327). This two-dimensional model meets three criteria: scalability, validity, and utility. Scalability is shown by factor analysis and Mokken scaling. Validity is shown by regression analyses that show that whether one lives in a rural or an urban community predicts one's position on the nature/agriculture dimension and that one's financial security predicts one's position on the climate/energy dimension. The utility is shown by regression analyses where the two dimensions are used to predict voting behavior. The Green Party voters favor nature and climate protection, the Liberal Party voters have the opposite views, the Christian-Democrats favor agricultural interests and the Freedom Party favor industrial interests.