6pgs, A nationwide study was undertaken in China to understand why public interest has shifted away from agriculture and to discuss approaches that may help restore interest and support for agriculture. The study collected 2586 questionnaires from 242 cities in 31 provinces in mainland China. The results suggest that agriculture is still of public interest, but interest has shifted from traditional farming to the consumer perspective in food safety, nutrition and health, food security and agricultural history. Two groups in this study, the younger generation and those with college degrees, show less interest in production agriculture. The accelerating shift in population from rural China to urban areas explains why these two groups are less connected with agricultural issues. The authors contend that it is critically important to keep the urban population knowledgeable of the importance of agriculture and suggest ways to improve communication and support from this educated, city-dweller point of view in order to ensure a stable and secure future. The approach of science appreciation (ways to effectively communicate science to general publics) is proposed to effectively gain renewed interest and engagement with the public in the science of agriculture in order to optimize the needs and benefits from agriculture to society.
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.
Ronteltap, Amber (author), Reinders, Machiel, J. (author), Van Dijk, Suzanne M. (author), Heijting, Sanne (author), Van der Lans, Ivo A. (author), and Lotz, Lambertus A. P. (author)
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
2016-08
Published:
Springer
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 7 Document Number: D10266
30 pages., Via online journal., New agrifood technologies are often difficult to grasp for the public, which may lead to resistance or even rejection. Insight into which technology features determine public acceptability of the technology could offer guidelines for responsible technology development. This paper systematically assesses the relative importance of specific technology features for consumer response in the agrifood domain in two consecutive studies. Prominent technology features were selected from expert judgment and literature. The effects of these features on consumer evaluation were tested in a consumer study (n = 745). Fictitious technologies were used to avoid any uncontrollable contextual influences that existing new technologies may evoke. Results show that technologies that were seen as more natural and newer were perceived less risky, more beneficial, and were evaluated more positively. Technologies applied to food were judged to be more beneficial, but also more risky than those applied to non-food. Technologies used in the production process were perceived to be less risky and evaluated more positively than those used in the product. Technologies owned by the market leader were perceived to be more beneficial, and evaluated more positively than those that were freely available. In a next study (n = 440), effects of the technology features on consumer response were tested for existing new agrifood technologies. This study replicated the results for perceived naturalness, perceived newness, and place in the production process where the technology is applied. However, in contrast to the first study, we did not find an effect of application area (food versus non-food) and technology ownership.