Consumer trust and willingness to pay for certified animal-friendly products

Increasing animal welfare standards requires changes along the supply chain which involve several stakeholders: scientists, farmers and people involved in transportation and slaughtering. The majority of researchers agree that compliance with these standards increases costs along the livestock value chain, especially for monitoring and certifying animal-friendly products. Knowledge of consumer willingness to pay (WTP) in such a decision context is paramount to understanding the magnitude of market incentives necessary to compensate all involved stakeholders. The market outcome of certification programs is dependent on consumer trust. Particularly, there is a need to understand to what extent consumers believe that stakeholders operating in the animal-friendly supply chain will respect certification standards. We examine these issues using a contingent valuation survey administered in five economically dominant EU countries. The implied WTP estimates are found to be sensitive to robust measures of consumer trust for certified animal-friendly products. Significant differences across countries are discussed

An Innovative University Course for Cooperating Teachers

The transformation of a course for certifying cooperating teachers in Puerto Rico is described. The course was transformed to strengthen the teaching of science and mathematics and to make the course more congruent with the educational principles of constructivism promoted by the CETP projects at the national level, including Puerto Rico. The 45-hour requirement was distributed over nine days. The Open Space strategy was modified to include multiple active teaching-learning and assessment techniques, which promoted a learning environment based on trust, dedication, and the commitment of all participants to learn and help each other learn. Even more relevant was the fact that more content was covered and in more depth. The modified version of the course was offered to secondary level science and mathematics teachers, especially to teachers who work at the practicum centers that are part of the PR-CETP

Certifying Out Of Home Operators in Europe. European Forum for Certification.

For the 7th consecutive year a session on organic certification of out-of-home operations was held at the BioFach in Nuremberg, February 2010. The focus on organic catering in Europe is a growing movement. A number of standards and statements are presented thus adding to the sharing of information, experiences and inspiration across borders and organisations. It is hoped that this exchange will facilitate beneficial contacts between those involved in the setting up and development of national and private catering certification standards. The mass catering sector is growing and therefore attracts increasing attention at pan‐European level; The EU regulation for organic food and farming (EC No 834/2007) which came into force on January 1st, 2009, obliges the European Commission to report to the EU Council on the scope of the regulation before the end of 2011, with a clear reference to ‘organic food prepared by mass caterers’. Moreover, a Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions of 16 July 2008 on ‘Public procurement for a better environment’ opens up for promoting an increased consumption of organic food and farming products as tools to mitigate climate change. In the following pages the presentations given at the BioFach session on certification of out‐of‐home catering are to be found