Perception of trust in sources of information on agriculture and food issues

Abstract

This factsheet presents some important takeaways from the 2016 Coloradan's Attitudes about Agriculture and Food survey. Colorado consumers have trust in the information from a variety of groups for infor-mation on both agriculture and food quality, nutrition, and safety issues. These groups include university and research organizations, Colorado Department of Agriculture, United States Department of Agriculture, and farmers and ranchers. When looking at Coloradan's opinions on particular agricultural practices, their levels of trust for information generally decreased as their approval for certain agricultural practices decreased. The only exception was the level of trust in information from environmental organizations on both agricultural and food issues from people who did not approve of particular agricultural practices. This might indicate that environmental organizations are appealing to different type of person in regards to their agricultural beliefs. This finding suggests that outreach and market specialists might want to collaborate with a variety of different groups in order to maximize the effectiveness of their message, especially if the message centers on potentially controversial agricultural topic. Trust for information from social media was lowest for both agricultural and food quality, nutrition, and safety issues. Finally, consumers did not indicate a significant difference overall between their trust on agriculture and food quality, nutrition, and safety issues for each source of information.