Research Highlights
At this summer’s International Food Marketing Research Symposium, recent alumna Emma Boase, who was a graduate scholar in our McQuinn Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership and was advised by Dr. Randall Westgren, received the Outstanding Student Paper Award. Her research examined how nutritional, health and production claims made on food packaging may create a “halo” effect — meaning, a claim made for one product attribute also affects consumer perceptions of other attributes found in the same product.
Research from Dr. Jasper Grashuis, assistant research professor of agricultural and applied economics, and Dr. Mike Cook, professor of agricultural and applied economics, suggests that cooperative longevity depends not only on a co-op’s financial performance but also the utility and satisfaction that the co-op creates for its farmer-members. In particular, the study measured how five factors — trust, participation, mission support, organic lifestyle and satisfaction — affected farmer-members’ long-term commitment to sustaining their membership in a co-op.
Hospitality management master’s student Yidan Huang and adviser Dr. Pei Liu, assistant professor of hospitality management, were recently recognized for their research. Their work, titled “An Evaluation of College Students’ Healthy Food Consumption Behaviors,” was nominated for four best paper awards.
A research poster from Anadil Iftekhar, rural sociology PhD student, placed second at this summer’s Rural Sociological Society annual meeting. It presents preliminary findings from a survey of 63 Muslims living in the U.S and Canada. The findings show religious factors affect Muslims’ food choices — the foods they eat and their food-related charitable activity. As Muslim populations grow, their food attitudes and behaviors may shape and affect interactions with food systems as they make choices consistent with their religious and cultural beliefs.
For restaurant and foodservice businesses, the most effective cause marketing messages pair visuals with text, according to research co-authored by Dr. Dae-Young Kim, hospitality management associate professor; colleague Dr. Sung-Bum Kim; and Dr. Kathleen Jeehyae Kim, hospitality management doctoral program graduate. The research also found that selecting an appropriate cause leads to consumers viewing cause marketing more favorably.
Soojin Lee, PhD student in hospitality management, earned third place at the 2019 Chinese Association for Food Protection in North America student presentation competition. Her presentation shared findings from a study that she and adviser Dr. Pei Liu, assistant professor of hospitality management, conducted to assess how campus dining employees accommodate student-customers who have food intolerances and food allergies. Just four in 10 adult U.S. campus dining employees participating in the survey research knew the difference between a food intolerance and a food allergy. The study highlights the need to train personnel about how to recognize and accommodate food intolerances and allergies.
Farms that adopt precision agriculture can sustain profitability, according to research co-authored by Dr. Ray Massey, agricultural and applied economics extension professor. A precision agriculture system (PAS) intends to maximize yields and crop quality while using inputs efficiently and achieving environmental conservation. For two successive 11-year periods, the study compared yields and profitability for one 86-acre field first managed using conventional practices and then a PAS. Profitability was essentially the same in the two periods. The study concluded that growers may consider PAS to not only preserve profits but also capture other potential benefits, such as improved soil health and water quality.
Our division’s Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) released its annual baseline update in August. Watch this segment in our Take One for Ag series to hear Dr. Seth Meyer, agricultural and applied economics research professor and FAPRI associate director, and Dr. Joe Parcell, division director, share highlights from the update.
For farms interested in operating agritourism enterprises, their location matters, according to research co-authored by Dr. Sarah Low, associate professor of regional economics. To study how place-based factors affect agritourism activity, the research first identified agritourism “hot spots” — areas with the greatest shares of farms involved in agritourism. It found that counties with proximity to scenic byways, remote locations, nearby natural amenities and access to residents who have high per capita incomes tended to be hot spots.
At this summer’s Community Development Society Conference, rural sociology PhD student Andres Felipe Mesa Valencia received the Best Poster Presentation of a Theme with International Significance award. The research addressed the emergence of food deserts — defined as areas that lack adequate access to fresh, healthy and affordable food — in Colombia, and it outlined several possible solutions to the Colombian food desert challenge.
Forming quality relationships with students and the community is critical for new agricultural education teachers to feel they can succeed in their jobs, based on research co-authored by Dr. Jon Simonsen, agricultural education and leadership associate professor. The research measured how different forms of teacher support — from school sources, such as students, parents, the community and colleagues, and non-school sources, such as family and friends — affect self-efficacy, which is the sense that one can do a job well and succeed.
With the updated “Missouri’s Third Class County Budget Trend Analysis” electronic workbook, Missouri third class counties — those with asset valuations that total less than $600 million — may study budget and fiscal trends for their respective counties from 1996 to 2017. Reviewing these data may also help counties to identify factors that influence those trends. Professor Dr. Judith Stallmann and James Rossi, agricultural and applied economics PhD student, created the new workbook.
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