Exotic livestock disease outbreaks have the capacity to significantly impact individual livestock keepers, as well as devastate an entire industry sector. However, there has been limited research ...undertaken to understand how farmers think about and carry out exotic livestock disease control practices within the social sciences. Drawing on aspects of Social Identity Theory and Self‐Categorisation Theory, this article explores how the ‘good farmer’ identity concept influences farmers’ exotic livestock disease control practices. Using findings from an in‐depth, large‐scale qualitative study with animal keepers and veterinarians, the article identifies three context specific and at times conflicting ‘good farmer’ identities. Additionally, a defensive component is noted whereby farmers suggest an inability to carry out their role as a ‘good farmer’ due to government failings, poor practice undertaken by ‘bad farmers’, as well as the uncontrollable nature of exotic disease.
Science has a powerful role in society. It can fuel innovation, shape policy and influence public opinion. However, science can also be highly controversial and subject to substantial disagreement ...and debate. Such debates are often evident in the media which regularly reports on areas of disagreement and debate. This article draws on the case‐study of bovine tuberculosis (bTB), which has become a highly politicised issue in recent years, to explore media representation of public knowledge controversies. The disease has received substantial policy and media attention, particularly in relation to badgers and their role in its spread. This article focuses on the ways in which the various debates associated with bTB and its control are presented in the press, with a specific emphasis on badger vaccination. An in‐depth discourse analysis compares regional, national and farming press, and identifies a number of complex dualisms against which the debate is framed. These dualisms help to explain the unclear policy direction and constant divisions between those who do and do not support badger vaccination, and the continued status of bTB control as a public knowledge controversy.
Within the existing literature, the role of experience of risk on attitudinal and behavioural risk response has been relatively neglected. Recent research that draws on the psychological distance of ...climate change as a concept notes the importance of local, significant experience as a driver for encouraging appropriate response. The experience of flooding was used as the stimulus in this paper, and emphasis placed on whether direct and/or indirect experience of flood risk is associated with different responses to climate change risk. In order to explore the relationship between climate change risk experience and response in the form of on-farm mitigation and adaptation, this paper draws on a case study of farmers in England, many of whom have experienced flooding. Results from a quantitative survey undertaken with 200 farmers in Gloucestershire, England are discussed. Statistical analysis found experience of flooding to be significantly associated with a heightened concern for climate change. Although also finding an association between experience and behavioural response, the sample were most likely to be taking adaptive behaviour as part of normal practice, with factors such as lack of overall concern for climate change risk and absence of information and advice likely to be the main barriers to action. Risk communication needs to further emphasise the connection between climate change and extreme weather events to allow for farmers to perceive climate change as a relevant and locally salient phenomenon, and subsequent tailored information and advice should be offered to clearly illustrate the best means of on-farm response. Where possible, emphasis must be placed on actions that also enable adaptation to other, more immediate risks which farmers in this study more readily exhibited concern for, such as market volatility.
Individuals respond to an experience of risk, both in attitudinal and behavioural terms as a result of how that experience is interpreted and appraised. Experience of local flooding can in theory, ...inform individuals' attitudes towards climate change. This trend however, is not observed in all cases and is highly dependent on the local, situational context. This paper postulates that the variation observed in attitudinal and behavioural responses by farmers to climate change following experiences of local flooding can, in part, be explained by the Cognitive Filters of Experience Appraisal Model introduced in this paper. The model is developed firstly through a review of the existing literature concerning appraisal (cognitive and experience). Secondly, the model is framed by empirical research via fifteen face to face interviews with farmers in Gloucestershire, England, who have all directly experienced flooding in recent years. The study is exploratory in nature, and the qualitative data serve as contextualised accounts of the different patterns of experience appraisal. The paper contributes to existing literature by developing current understandings of experience appraisal as well as providing qualitative detail to an area which has generally only been researched quantitatively. The model of experience appraisal which is put forward could be applied to multiple contexts of environmental risk.
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