Perceptions of Hunting and Hunters by U.S. Respondents

Public acceptance of hunting and hunting practices is an important human dimension of wildlife management in the United States. Researchers surveyed 825 U.S. residents in an online questionnaire about their views of hunting, hunters, and hunting practices. Eighty-seven percent of respondents from the national survey agreed that it was acceptable to hunt for food whereas 37% agreed that it was acceptable to hunt for a trophy. Over one-quarter of respondents did not know enough about hunting over bait, trapping, and captive hunts to form an opinion about whether the practice reduced animal welfare. Chi-square tests were used to explore relationships between perceptions of hunters and hunting practices and demographics. Those who knew hunters, participated in hunting-related activities, visited fairs or livestock operations, or were males who had more favorable opinions on hunting. A logistic regression model showed that not knowing a hunter was a statistically significant negative predictor of finding it acceptable to hunt; owning a pet was statistically significant and negative for approving of hunting for a trophy

Integrated On-Farm Decision Making: Economic Implications of Increased Variation in Litter Size

Increased litter sizes and associated piglet performance consequences, challenge swine producers. Stochastic modeling captured bioeconomic performance of individual piglets. As average litter size increased from 8.8 to 20.8 piglets, costs and revenues per head marketed from the demonstration herd decreased and total profit increased at a decreasing rate.stochastic modeling, farm business management, swine litter size, Agribusiness, Farm Management, Livestock Production/Industries,

The effects of attribute non-attendance, simple validation questions, and their interactions on willingness to pay estimates for meat choice experiments

During an online survey, respondents were randomly assigned to a choice experiment for either pork chops or chicken breasts and were then explicitly asked which attributes they did not consider while making their choices. A simple validation question, which directed respondents to choose a specific answer, was also included. Accounting for either stated or inferred attribute non-attendance alone had no statistically significant effect on willingness-to-Pay (WTP) estimates. Those who passed the validation question had statistically significant and higher WTP for some attributes of pork chops and chicken breasts when the variable was interacted with inferred or stated attribute non-attendance (ANA). While use of a validation question appears promising, more research is needed on this point before it can be concluded that ANA alone has no impact on the WTP estimates for food choice experiments

The effects of attribute non-attendance, simple validation questions, and their interactions on willingness to pay estimates for meat choice experiments

Abstract: During an online survey, respondents were randomly assigned to a choice experiment for either pork chops or chicken breasts and were then explicitly asked which attributes they did not consider while making their choices. A simple validation question, which directed respondents to choose a specific answer, was also included. Accounting for either stated or inferred attribute non-attendance alone had no statistically significant effect on willingness-to-Pay (WTP) estimates. Those who passed the validation question had statistically significant and higher WTP for some attributes of pork chops and chicken breasts when the variable was interacted with inferred or stated attribute non-attendance (ANA). While use of a validation question appears promising, more research is needed on this point before it can be concluded that ANA alone has no impact on the WTP estimates for food choice experiments

We’re All Listening. The Multitude of Astonishing (Petrifying?) Uses of Your Social Media Data

We’ve realized for years that our web browser knows we need things that we didn\u27t even know we wanted. But shopping and purchase data is low-hanging fruit. Think more broadly about the multitude of data created 24-7 on social media. From Twitter to blogs, data are being generated on who said what about whom and even when and where. Social media listening and social media analytics (including language and image analysis) facilitate insights into one’s business or industry, and a lot more. This talk will discuss how social media listening is being used across various marketplaces and industries. It will present data from research centered on tracking social media sentiment in fields ranging from leisure travel to agricultural and food markets. The presentation will highlight potential benefits associated with collecting and analyzing social media-based data, while simultaneously discussing the (increasingly obvious, perhaps) devious uses of such capabilities

QUANTIFYING CONSUMERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF LEAN FINELY TEXTURED BEEF

Consumers today are increasingly interested in how their food is produced, especially meat and livestock products. The media sources consumers use for information on food production and safety are changing, as evidenced by the lean finely textured beef (LFTB) event in the spring of 2012. Social media and online availability of information are changing not only the mode of communication, but rapidly increasing the speed of information and knowledge exchange. The objectives of this analysis are to quantify the media stories surrounding LFTB and to characterize consumers’ concern, knowledge and purchasing behavior about LFTB. Media counts were constructed using the LexisNexis Academic Database using “All News English” and “Major World Publications” sources. The main peaks in the number of media stories occurred the week of March 25th, two weeks after the airing of an ABC News story that was widely viewed to have been at the forefront of the LFTB debate in 2012. However, LFTB stories continued beyond March 2012 and were still being published throughout the entire period analyzed. Of the eight topics investigated, consumer and government were the most discussed topics in conjunction with LFTB. LFTB producers and meat processors topics lagged behind other topics, potentially indicating a reactive approach by these groups. In order to better understand consumers’ concerns, knowledge and perceptions of LFTB a survey was conducted; most participants had heard of “pink slime” (the name used in the media for LFTB) while only about one-third had heard of LFTB. Only 11% of participants indicated they had purchased LFTB in the past six months, however, 80% reported purchasing ground beef in the past six months, leading to questions surrounding consumers linking LFTB to ground beef. Most participants were not willing to purchase LFTB in the future

PRIORITIZING MANAGEMENT FOCUS AREAS FOR COMMERCIAL FARMS

Farm management is a series of complex processes incorporating a variety of dynamic factors, including biological production systems, resource allocation and management, and the management of increasingly complex financial and economic systems. Farm managers are constantly required to prioritize and allocate management effort and attention amongst these factors and evaluate tradeoffs. This analysis elicited from commercial producers the relative ranking of five critical farm management focus areas, namely, managing production; managing land, equipment, and facilities; controlling costs; managing output prices; and managing people. Out of a total of 2,247 commercial farms in this study, the largest mean shares of importance were placed on controlling costs (28.6%) and managing production (27.3%). Producers, on average, emphasized the management areas of controlling costs and managing production, relative to managing land, equipment, and facilities; managing people; and managing output prices, for farm success. Correlations between the farm management focus areas studied were estimated from producer-specific share of importance estimates resulting from a random parameters logit model; the strongest correlation observed was the negative relationship between managing production and controlling costs. Implications for self-identified success factors, or critical areas of management focus, of commercial farms are far reaching, potentially influencing sales, marketing, and decision support for these operations, as well as driving research and programmatic focus to provide relevant information to these producers moving forward

Grocery Shopping in the Digital Era

The US grocery market was worth more than $600 billion in 2019 but only about 5% of this value is contributed by online purchases. With the projected growth in online grocery markets, we revisit how groceries get to the doorstep in the digital-shopping “place order online” era