Estudio de la luz a través de los rosetones 1 El rosetón como proyector de luz

The research reported in this thesis ultimately sought to increase understanding of some of the key factors related to the perceptions and adoption of sustainable agriculture practices and products. Through use of CCBMPs to assess farmer adoption of

sustainable agriculture practices, and raw milk to assess consumer perception of a perceived sustainable agriculture product, a narrow window into this topic was opened.

Sustainable agriculture provides a means to mitigate the future negative effects of climate change and industrialized agriculture, and adapt to the already present impacts. These benefits can be maximized through increased practice adoption by taking local economic conditions into account when developing incentive programs. Understanding the demand for products produced with use of sustainable agriculture practices is also important to maximizing associated benefits. The issue of raw milk illustrates that even potentially dangerous food products are being consumed by the public, in large part due to their embedded benefits. Considerations of safety are important for consumers, but social and environmental benefits also motivate consumption. The public may even be willing to assume some degree of risk to ensure continued provision of those benefits.

A review of the literature, and results from recent research show that economic considerations are of central importance to the farmer adoption of sustainable agriculture practices, such as CCBMPs. Furthermore, incentive programs play an important role in promoting these practices. However, as the CCBMPs element results of this research indicate, local costs for these practices must be aligned with program payments to ensure maximum adoption. While it is hard to justify the generalization of this study’s first article’s results upon other region’s incentive payment programs, it does raise the

question of if these programs are providing high enough incentive levels to maximize adoption. Future research should assess this issue in other regions, and with additional practices. Local, farmer based cost studies should be used to inform payment levels, and these costs should be incorporated into extension outreach and educational materials.

The consumer side of sustainable agriculture focuses upon the products

produced through sustainable agriculture as opposed to the practices. Results of the raw milk component of this study indicate that perceptions of product safety, especially of potentially dangerous food products, significantly relates to consumer perceptions of those products. While this finding is quite logical, of more importance is the underlying complexity that goes into the formation of these consumer perceptions. These

perceptions of safety are influenced by a range of factors, primarily those that are observable. Specifically, the factors of perceived health benefits, presence of children in the household, and taste were found to be related to perceptions of safety most

significantly in the case of raw milk. Furthermore, it appears that these perceived benefits of raw milk inversely impact perceptions of safety, as Slovic’s (1987, 1990) theories would suggest. For example, the perception that raw milk taste better than pasteurized milk causes that consumer to perceive raw milk as less dangerous.

Unexpectedly, perceptions of sustainable agricultural practices impact on food safety were not found to influence perceptions of raw milk safety as potentially indicated by previous raw milk literature. Existing studies on the motivations for raw milk

consumption (Leamy, Heiss, & Roche, 2014; Paxson, 2008; Berg, 2008) identify social and environmentally embedded production methods as driving factors for consumption. Specially, local, small-scale, labor-intensive, artisanal, perceived increased health

benefits over pasteurized milk, cultivated relationships with family farmers, and support for local and sustainable farm were all noted as motivations for consuming raw milk ((Leamy, Heiss, and Roche, 2014; Katafiasz & Bartlett, 2012; Bell, 2010, Berg, 2008). This result indicates that while safety considerations of potentially danger food products are important to consumers, numerous other environmental, social, and economic factors also impact public perceptions of those food products. Caution should be taken when generalizing these results to sustainable agriculture products as a whole, as raw milk is a unique case given it microbiological characteristics. Safety perceptions would likely play less of a role in less potentially dangerous food products.

Despite public health official warnings, Vermonters continue to consume raw milk at an increasing pace. Clearly, these consumers don’t want to get food poisoning from E. coli, campylobacter, or the various other potential pathogens, but drink it anyways. Results of this study show that perceptions of safety are a consideration for consumers, but that these perceptions are impacted by factors beyond that

microbiological risk. Furthermore, consumers are to some degree likely willing to ingest a risky product because of the social and environmental benefits that practices behind that product provide. While this issue is certainly complicated by the conflicting messages regarding raw milk’s safety, it stands to reason that the public is generally aware of the risks associated with raw milk given the requirements that these risks be provided to consumers at time of purchase. Future research should study to what degree the public is willing to assume risk when consumption provides various social and environmental public benefits, and experiential or health related personal benefits.