6 pages, Understanding relationships between demographic and economic factors and equestrian participation could improve horse program design. We implemented an online survey that characterized associations of participation in equine activities, socioeconomic factors, and economic factors with age. Seventy-five percent of respondents ride, and 34% are recreational, non-competitive participants. Respondents were mostly female, and many participate in the sport throughout life. Many respondents indicated they overspent on equestrian activities. Horse programs should incorporate information and activities that address issues unique to females, should develop skills required by amateur or recreational riders, and should incorporate information on financial wellness.
8 pages., Article # 4FEA2, via online journal., Elected officials, an audience essential to the relevance and funding of Extension, may lack knowledge of Extension's capacity to engage with them in solving local problems, building consensus, and improving strategic planning or governance. They may not consider that by collaborating with locally knowledgeable Extension professionals, they also gain access to broader university resources that can assist them in understanding community needs and obtaining relevant evidence-based recommendations. We describe how Extension and county officials and personnel implemented utilization-focused evaluation to inform county strategic planning,
budgeting, and governance, leading to continuous process improvement for the county and increased support for and understanding of Extension.
20 pages, To achieve social sustainability, there is a need to incorporate social metrics of farmers’ well- being into agricultural monitoring systems. We contribute to the operationalisation of the measurement of farmers’ well- being by determining how farm- level factors influence farmers’ satisfaction with their work and quality of life. Using a data sample of 1099 farms that are part of the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) in nine European countries, we tested a set of hypotheses related to work satisfaction and life quality perception based on a structural equation model. Satisfaction with on- farm work has a significant and substantial influence on satisfaction with quality of life. Farm- level aspects, such as working time, age of assets, financial situation of the farm and community engagement, significantly influenced farmers’ satisfaction with farming, but their joint effect explained less than one- fifth of the satisfaction. The results suggest that agricultural information systems intended to monitor and compare sustainability progress on farms would benefit from the integration of a metric measuring social concerns from the farmers’ point of view
7 pages., Via online journal., Policy makers in the European Union are envisioning the introduction of a community farm animal welfare label which would allow consumers to align their consumption habits with their farm animal welfare preferences. For welfare labeling to be viable the market for livestock products produced to higher welfare standards has to be sufficiently segmented with consumers having sufficiently distinct and behaviourally consistent preferences. The present study investigates consumers’ preferences for meat produced to different welfare standards using a hypothetical welfare score. Data is obtained from a contingent valuation study carried out in Britain. The ordered prohbit model was estimated using Bayesian inference to obtain mean willingness to pay. We find decreasing marginal WTP as animal welfare levels increase and that people’s preferences for different levels of farm animal welfare are sufficiently differentiated making the introduction of a la belling scheme in the form of a certified rating system appear feasible.
7 pages., via online journal., The aim of this work is to explore the relation between morality and diet choice by investigating how animal and
human welfare attitudes and donation behaviors can predict a meat eating versus flexitarian versus vegetarian
diet. The results of a survey study (N=299) show that animal health concerns (measured by the Animal
Attitude Scale) can predict diet choice. Vegetarians are most concerned, while full-time meat eaters are least
concerned, and the contrast between flexitarians and vegetarians is greater than the contrast between
flexitarians and full-time meat eaters.
With regards to human welfare (measured by the Moral Foundations Questionnaire), results show that attitudes
towards human suffering set flexitarians apart from vegetarians and attitudes towards authority and respect
distinguish between flexitarians and meat eaters. To conclude, results show that vegetarians donate more
often to animal oriented charities than flexitarians and meat eaters, while no differences between the three
diet groups occur for donations to human oriented charities.
8 pages., Via online journal., Increasing concerns about farm animal welfare have led to an increase in the availability of welfare-friendly-products (WFP), but little is known about how much more consumers are willing-to-pay (WTP) for WFP or about their buying trends in Latin America. In this study, a survey was given to 843 meat consumers in the city of Toluca, Mexico. The results show that consumers were interested in farm animal welfare issues and their ethical, sociological and economic implications, as in Europe. The people surveyed also conveyed a high level of empathy with animal feelings and emotions, however they clearly demanded more information and regulations related to farm animal welfare. The majority of respondents expressed that they were WTP more for properly certified WFP, but mostly based on the benefits in terms of product quality and human health. If the demand for WFP begins to increase in Mexico, the supply chain should consider a certification system to guarantee product origin based on current conditions.
13 pages., Via online journal., Access to food is a basic pillar of human development. It is therefore unsurprising that it features so centrally on global development agendas and that a robust, interdisciplinary literature seeks to examine its determinants. This study focuses on the relationship between mobile technology and food access. Specifically, we ask whether mobile technology can strengthen the relationship between food access and certain social and political factors such as remittance flows and political participation. We use Afrobarometer surveys and highly disaggregated data on 2G network coverage to estimate a multilevel model testing how increased connectivity measured by mobile technology influences food access. We show that mobile phone use and higher frequency of use are significantly and positively correlated with food access, but we do not find evidence that remittances and political participation levels can explain the mechanisms linking mobile technology and food access. The study highlights that connectivity can play a powerful role in shaping food outcomes even when controlling for commonly identified impediments such as income constraints or physical isolation. These findings suggest that policies aimed at improving food access should devote attention to strengthening both communication and physical infrastructure.
22 pages., via online journal., This study investigates German news media coverage and PR material of offshore wind
stakeholders from industry, politics, science and civil society thoroughly to provide
insights about offshore wind benefits and risks communicated frequently and rarely to
the public. By comparative analyses, differences between stakeholder and media
messages are revealed: while stakeholders strongly focused on the supportive argument
relevance of offshore wind for the energy turnaround, the media often discussed the
negative impacts higher costs and delays in grid connection. Furthermore, the influence
of offshore wind arguments on acceptance is measured within a survey representative of
the German population. With these results, it can be assessed how far influential
arguments were presented and which messages have been used frequently despite their
low impact. Disruptions to viewscapes, limitation of commercial fishing areas, and
hazards to shipping proved to be effective a
11 pages., Via online journal., Visual communication allows the transmission of ideas and information more easily than written communication. Therefore, visual communication is used in different sectors (education, health, machinery, marketing, politics, environmental studies, musicology, science) to overcome language barriers and to effectively convey useful information. Nevertheless, the use of visual material to improve the comprehensibility of safety training in the workplace has been under-investigated, which is particularly true in the agricultural sector, despite its hazardousness and the high number of migrant farmworkers who might benefit from training provided by means of visual communication due to their often scarce knowledge of the local language. Combining graphic composition rules with a user-centred design (UCD) approach, this study aimed to develop visual safety training material based on migrant farmworkers’ needs to increase migrant trainees’ satisfaction in the training process. Focus groups were conducted with both trainers and migrant farmworkers to identify critical issues in existing safety training material and to discuss and evaluate different prototypes of the visual material developed by the authors. Significantly higher satisfaction was reported by migrants trained with the new material compared to a control group in a final training session (U = 152.50, z = −2.165, p = 0.030). Implications for the improvement of safety training for migrant farmworkers are discussed.
10 pages., Via online journal., In 18 East German municipalities, nine of them with a planned pig production site and the other nine with an existing pig production site, a survey was carried out on the factors influencing the acceptance of pig production. The influencing factors examined were the personal attitude on particular aspects of pig production, socio-demographic characteristics, the personal involvement in local decision-making, the size of livestock and the production technology. As a result, existing production sites are perceived more positively than planned sites, without any influence of size and production technology. The difference may be explained by the fact that planned sites are evaluated in respect to economic arguments as jobs and income (market goods), while existing sites are rather evaluated in respect to environmental factors (public goods). For new investments the results lead to the recommendation to emphasize its economic aspects, to integrate the investor socially in the rural community and to apply technology that prevents pollution for the neighborhood. More importantly, the results show the shortcomings of a “top down” approach and the indispensability of endogenous resources in regional development.
