Farmer and Non-Farmer Attitudes towards Alternative Animal Products

Farmer and Non-Farmer Attitudes towards Alternative Animal Products

Chloe Crawshaw

23/09/22

Farmers’ livelihoods and way of living could be argued to be under threat from the simultaneous rapid rise of plant-based products, development of cultured products, and our growing understanding of the detrimental impact of traditional animal agriculture. Little research has investigated farmers attitudes towards cultured and plant-based products. Furthermore, famers appear to have limited awareness of these animal product alternatives. This study presented 45 omnivorous farmers and 53 omnivorous non-farmers with information about plant-based burgers, cultured burgers, plant-based milk, and cultured milk. Product acceptance and COM-B facilitators and barriers were explored. Farmers were less accepting of all alternative products than non-farmers, suggesting that their vested interest in the continuation of traditional animal agriculture affected their attitudes towards alternative products. Closer inspection of farmer acceptance suggests that personal investment in animal agriculture also led to differences within farmers, with occupational farmers being less accepting of the products than the members of farming families. The findings are interpreted using the Transtheoretical Model to suggest that regarding the adoption of alternative products, occupational farmers appear to be in the rejection stage, whereas members of farming families appear to be in the contemplation stage. As occupational farmers had more negative attitudes towards the alternative products, they appear more likely to consider the alternatives a threat to their livelihood.

farmers, plant-based alternatives, cultured products, COM-B Model, Transtheoretical Model

Participant Recruitment and Exclusions
Participant recruitment followed a pre-registered plan (https://aspredicted.org/blind.php?x=QL3_H96). Between July and August 2022 two groups of participants were recruited: adults with experience of livestock farming (Farmers), and a comparison group of adults without experience of livestock farming (Non-Farmers). Farmers make up a very small percentage (0.2%) of the UK population (DEFA, 2021) so we included current farmers, retired farmers, farm workers, and members of farming families.
Fifty-five livestock farmers predominately living in Gloucestershire were recruited using snowball sampling. Farmers that were known to the author were first contacted via telephone, social media, or visited in-person. Interested participants were provided with the URL link to the questionnaire, a brief description of the study, and a request to forward the information to other individuals in the farming community. Individuals without internet access received a paper copy of the questionnaire.
Sixty-one non-farmers were recruited through snowball sampling in the same method as for farmers. As farmers are typically older males (DEFRA, 2019), we attempted to match the ages of the non farmers to the farmers and effort was taken to recruit female farmers and members of farming families. Our recruitment plan was to recruit a minimum of 40 participants per group. To qualify for the study, farmers and non-farmers had to be omnivores.
A further 23 farmers and 10 non-farmers were recruited using Prolific by pre-screening for those in the ‘Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources’ employment sector, the description of the study also encouraged participation among those with “experience of working with farmed animals.”
A total of 130 participants consented to participate: 55 farmers, 61 non-farmers, and a further fourteen who were excluded as they did not reach the demographics section so could not be classified into a group. Following our preregistered exclusion criteria, 18 participants who reported dietary restrictions were excluded (10 Farmers and 8 Non-Farmers). The final sample consisted of 45 Farmers and 53 Non-Farmers.
Design and Procedure
A 2x4 mixed design was used, with Group as a between-subjects factor with two levels: Farmer and Non-Farmer, and Product type as a within-subjects factors with four levels: plant-based burgers, cultured beef burgers, plant-based milk, and cultured cow’s milk. Participants completed an online questionnaire on Qualtrics (Qualtrics, 2005) that “drew attention to existing and emerging food innovations and explored beliefs and attitudes towards these products “, see Appendix A. The questionnaire took approximately 15 minutes.
Ethical Statement
The study was approved by Lancaster University’s Department of Psychological Ethics Committee. Participation was anonymous and Farmers were not asked to disclose the name or location of their farm. All participants gave their informed consent before accessing the questionnaire. On completion of the questionnaire, participants were debriefed, reminded of their right to withdraw their data, and were thanked.
Materials
The questionnaire comprised of six sections: vignettes, product acceptance, facilitators and barriers to product acceptance, consumer behaviour, demographics, and farming information.
Vignettes
Participants were presented with a brief description of factory farming, including its prevalence in the UK and the negative consequence on farmed animals and the environment. See Appendix B for full vignette details and references. Factory farming was chosen as it is the main method of farming in the UK (FAIRR, 2016). Participants were then presented with brief descriptions of plant-based products and methods of creating cultured animal products. Product features were compared against traditional animal products, including the sensory qualities, nutritional content, animal involvement, and environmental impact. Using a similar table to Van Loo et al. (2020), participants were presented with a comparison of the relative environmental impact of a plant-based soya burger and a cultured beef burger compared to a factory farmed beef burger

Lancaster University

Data/SPSS.sav

Crawshaw2022

HanYi Wang
Amie Suthers

Open

None

English

Data

LA1 4YF

Dr Jared Piazza

MSC

Social

98(45 Farmers and 53 Non-Farmers)

Chi-squared
Correlation
Kruskall-Wallis, MANOVA, Wilcoxon Signed Rank, Mann-Whitney U