Healthy Cows, Happy Farmers? Exploring the Dynamics of Mastitis and Farmer Well-Being.

Clinical mastitis, a prevalent production disease in the dairy industry, causes significant pain and swelling in dairy cows' udders. While previous research highlights a symbiotic relationship between humans and animals, particularly in terms of health, this study investigates how animal health, specifically clinical mastitis, influences farmers' well-being. Acknowledging farmers' pivotal role in mitigating animal health problems, we examined the human-animal relationship by exploring how dairy cow health relates to the psychological well-being of dairy farmers.

Main factors influencing the perceived health risk of endocrine-disrupting chemicals: A systematic literature review.

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are linked to rising health issues such as infertility, childhood obesity, and asthma. While some research exists on health risk perceptions of EDCs, a comprehensive understanding across different populations and contexts is needed. We performed a systematic literature review, examining 45 articles published between 1985 and 2023, focusing on both the risk perception of EDCs as a whole as well as individual EDCs found in the environment (e.

Social incentives as nudges for agricultural knowledge diffusion and willingness to pay for certified seeds: Experimental evidence from Uganda.

A transition from low-input subsistence farming in Sub-Saharan Africa will require the use of yield-increasing agricultural technologies. However, in developing countries, most farmers continue to rely heavily on pest-infested and disease-infected recycled seed from own or local sources leading to low yields. This study used a field experiment to examine the effect of a social incentive combined with goal setting on the diffusion of agricultural knowledge and uptake of quality certified seed by farmers.

Triggering cognitive dissonance with textual information and images: Data from three experiments with meat-eaters.

This article presents data from three experiments in which we triggered and measured cognitive dissonance in meat-eaters. Cognitive dissonance is a well-established concept in the social psychology literature; however, empirical measures are scarce. In all datasets, we used textual information and/or images related to meat consumption as means to trigger cognitive dissonance.

Smaller prize, bigger size? Exploring the impact of money on men's self-reported markers of masculinity.

Bodily markers, often self-reported, are frequently used in research to predict a variety of outcomes. The present study examined whether men, at the aggregate level, would overestimate certain bodily markers linked to masculinity, and if so, to what extent. Furthermore, the study explored whether the amount of monetary rewards distributed to male participants would influence the obtained data quality.

COVID-19 Impact on Household Food Security in Urban and Peri-Urban Areas of Hyderabad, India.

This paper investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on food security and on coping-strategies in urban and peri-urban areas of the Hyderabad, India. Household survey data were collected before (October 2018) and during (January 2021) the onset of the pandemic. Results from logistic regression with the standarized Food Insecurity Expecience Scale (FIES) as dependent variable reveal that close to 40% of the households surveyed experienced a deterioration in food security status during the pandemic.

Covert attention leads to fast and accurate decision-making.

Decision-makers are regularly faced with more choice information than they can directly gaze at in a limited amount of time. Many theories assume that because decision-makers attend to information sequentially and overtly, that is, with direct gaze, they must respond to information overload by trading off between speed and decision accuracy. By reanalyzing five published studies, we show that participants, besides using overt attention, also use covert attention.

The inverse relation between risks and benefits: The impact of individual differences in information processing style.

Existing research shows that evaluations of the risks and benefits of various hazards (i.e., technologies and activities) are inversely related.

Genetically modified food and consumer risk responsibility: The effect of regulatory design and risk type on cognitive information processing.

The use of agro-biotechnology has raised consumer concerns about environmental, health, socio-economic and ethical risks. This study examines how regulatory policies regarding genetically modified (GM) food production affect consumers' cognitive information processing, in terms of perceived risk, self-control, and risk responsibility. There is further analysis of whether the effect of policy design is moderated by risk type.

Impact of Covid-19 on farming systems in Europe through the lens of resilience thinking.

Context: Resilience is the ability to deal with shocks and stresses, including the unknown and previously unimaginable, such as the Covid-19 crisis.

Objective: This paper assesses (i) how different farming systems were exposed to the crisis, (ii) which resilience capacities were revealed and (iii) how resilience was enabled or constrained by the farming systems' social and institutional environment.

Methods: The 11 farming systems included have been analysed since 2017.

Quality and psychosocial factors influencing purchase of orange-fleshed sweetpotato bread.

This 2018 study, conducted in six Tusky's supermarkets in Nairobi, Kenya, combined the Just-About-Right, Penalty and Mean-End-Chain analyses to examine the quality and psychosocial factors influencing the purchase of a novel bread made from orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP), a biofortified crop, focusing on sixty-one male and eighty female urban OFSP bread buyers recruited at point of purchase. It finds that sensory and psychosocial factors drive purchasing decisions and that some of the bread's sensory characteristics are misaligned with consumers' expectations. It also finds that women and men's evaluations of the bread's characteristics are different, as are their motivations for purchase.

Risk perception and determinants in small- and medium-sized agri-food enterprises amidst the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from Egypt.

The coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has disrupted many activities along agri-food supply chains in developing countries and posed unprecedented challenges in particular to small and medium agri-food enterprises (SMEs). Drawing on a survey of 166 Egyptian agri-food SMEs, this study investigates differences in- and determinants of COVID-19 business risk perception among these enterprises. The empirical results showed that risk perception was highly asymmetric across geographical regions.

Predictors of Intention to Integrate Biofortified Orange-fleshed Sweetpotato in Child Feeding: A Field Information Experiment in Rural Kenya.

The study assesses the psychosocial predictors of intention to integrate biofortified pro-vitamin A orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP) in proper complementary feeding (PCF) among women who received either verbal or verbal and visual demonstrations on OFSP-based foods. A total of 764 randomly selected women grouped into four categories, namely pregnant women, women with infants, women with young children, and potential mothers, participated in this study. Using a structural equation model of predicted intentions based on an extended Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) the study found goal-setting, perceived behavior control, subjective norms, and attitudes had a significant influence on intention to integrate OFSP in PCF.

Experimental and survey-based data on willingness to pay for seafood safety and environmental sustainability certification in Nigeria.

Aquatic foods, including fish, are a substantial component of animal source foods globally, and make a critical nutritional contribution to diets in many contexts. In the global North, concern among consumers and regulators over the safety and environmental sustainability of seafood, particularly in developed nations, has led to the development of increasingly stringent seafood safety standards. While such standards may constitute regularity, logistical, and economic barriers to participation in export markets by small-scale producers, they have in other contexts catalysed upgrades to production and post-harvest handling practices within value chains associated with both capture fisheries and aquaculture.

Spatiotemporal dynamics of urbanization and cropland in the Nile Delta of Egypt using machine learning and satellite big data: implications for sustainable development.

The Nile Delta of Egypt is increasingly facing sustainability threats, due to a combination of nature- and human-induced changes in land cover and land use. In this paper, an analysis of big time series data from remotely sensed satellite images and the random forests classifier was undertaken to assess the spatial and temporal dynamics of urbanization and cropland in the Nile Delta between 2007 and 2017. Out of thirteen variables, five spectral indices were chosen to build 500 decision trees, with a resulting overall accuracy average of 91.

Dissuasive effect, information provision, and consumer reactions to the term 'Biotechnology': The case of reproductive interventions in farmed fish.

Biotechnology can provide innovative and efficient tools to support sustainable development of aquaculture. It is generally accepted that use of the term 'genetically modified' causes controversy and conflict among consumers, but little is known about how using the term 'biotechnology' as a salient feature on product packaging affects consumer preferences. In an online discrete choice experiment consisting of two treatments, a set of 1005 randomly chosen Swedish consumers were surveyed about use of hormone and triploidization sterilization techniques for salmonids.

Development and validation of a measurement scale for self-efficacy for farmers' mastitis prevention in dairy cows.

The purpose of this study was twofold. First, we developed and validated the domain-specific Mastitis Prevention Self-Efficacy scale (MPSES), derived from developing a corresponding scale for the General Self-Efficacy Scale and consisting of 10 items describing dairy farmers' feelings of confidence about being able to prevent, reduce and control mastitis, a common infection of the udder. Second, farmers' cognitive assessment of mastitis was used in order to explore the correlation of general and domain-specific self-efficacy.

Goal-setting and volitional behavioural change: Results from a school meals intervention with vitamin-A biofortified sweetpotato in Nigeria.

Malnutrition, particularly vitamin A deficiency, is a major public health problem in many developing countries. This study investigated whether priming or self-generation of goals, or whether attention to instrumental or experiential goals together with use of a reminder condition or not, promotes dietary behaviour intentions and change. A set of 556 randomly selected children aged 7-12 in Osun state, Nigeria, participated in an four-week intervention and field experiment in which a meal based on orange-fleshed sweetpotato, rich in pro-vitamin A, was introduced on five occasions as a complement to the existing school meal.

Effect of nutrition education and psychosocial factors on child feeding practices: findings of a field experiment with biofortified foods and different women categories.

Despite the efforts to promote good practices in infant and young child feeding (IYCF), the adoption of such practices has been low. Using data from a sample of 665 women, and the theory of planned behavior, we examine the effect of different types of nutrition education and psychosocial factors on the use of recommended IYCF practices. Regression results show that nutrition education and psychosocial factors have strong positive effect on the extent to which IYCF practices are used, with the latter having conflicting individual but overall positive effect.

An empirical examination of the conceptualization of companion animals.

Background: The extensive keeping of companion animals and the substantial monetary amount we spend on these animals indicate that they are highly valued. Although the benefits humans derive from keeping cats and dogs have been extensively studied, how we conceptualize these animals has received limited attention. How people conceptualize cats and dogs is important as it influences human behavior and the well-being of humans as well as animals.

Use and non-use values as motivational construct dimensions for farm animal welfare: impacts on the economic outcome for the farm.

This study explored how farmers' motivation in terms of use values and/or non-use values to work with farm animal welfare are associated with the economic outcome for the farm. Use values in farm animal welfare refer to economic value derived from productivity and profitability considerations. Non-use values in farm animal welfare refer to economic value derived from good animal welfare, irrespective of the use the farmer derives from the animal, currently or in the future.

How Much Credence Does It Take? Evidence on the Trade-Off between Country-Of-Origin Information and Credence Attributes for Beef from a Choice Experiment in Sweden.

Based on a discrete choice experiment with 336 consumers, this study investigated whether the consumer propensity to choose a simplified European Union (EU) vs. non-EU denomination of origin for beef, instead of a specific country-of-origin (COO) denomination, depends upon the amount and type of credence information provided to the individual. The likelihood of choosing the EU/non-EU denomination of origin depended on the total number of other labelling credence attributes provided and also on the type of detailed credence attributes present in the choice.

Dairy farmers' use and non-use values in animal welfare: Determining the empirical content and structure with anchored best-worst scaling.

In this study, we sought to identify empirically the types of use and non-use values that motivate dairy farmers in their work relating to animal welfare of dairy cows. We also sought to identify how they prioritize between these use and non-use values. Use values are derived from productivity considerations; non-use values are derived from the wellbeing of the animals, independent of the present or future use the farmer may make of the animal.

Effects of salience are both short- and long-lived.

A salient object can attract attention irrespective of its relevance to current goals. However, this bottom up effect tends to be short-lived (e.g.