Luiza Toma

Scotland's Rural College | SRUC · Rural Economy, Environment & Society

Single-use disposable cups are a significant contributor to plastic waste due to their widespread use and limited recyclability. Policymakers worldwide are implementing measures to reduce their consumption and encourage reusable alternatives. This study evaluates the impact of regulatory measures (charges and discounts), persuasion (environmental i...

Understanding the factors associated with adoption of ecological farming practices is a well-established topic ofinterest to agricultural economists. As the transition to more sustainable agriculture has become a policy priority for the European Union, broad and balanced reviewsof this literature are important. We develop a systematicmap of quantit...

Known in the literature as underutilized, neglected or orphan crops, these crops have been cited as having the potential to improve food and nutritional security. The literature also highlights however that consumers in developing countries are increasingly abandoning their traditional diets that these crops are part of, and are replacing them by w...

Delivering an agricultural policy which meets ecosystem and climatic pressures and addresses weaknesses in our current food system presents complex challenges for food producers. Adoption of ecological practices will reduce the dependence on imports into the farm and is one way to meet some of these policy ambitions. Understanding why farmers do or...

Understanding what influences the adoption of multiple sustainable farming practices, a concept we call adoption intensity, is critical to the sustainable development of our food system. Drawing on a survey of European farmers, and using structural equation modelling, we found dispositional influences important for adoption intensity at the farm-le...

Orphan crops are those crops that did not receive the same attention of the research community as in the case of staples such as wheat, maize, or rice despite their regional and nutritional importance. A relatively recent trend has been promoting their research to improve their productivity and resilience to environmental shocks. However, their imp...

Agricultural policies are now orientated towards sustainable food production which integrate climate and biodiversity targets. Increasing the uptake of ecological approaches is intrinsic to the success of these policies. but this is contingent on farmer acceptability of these practices. We employ a cross-European farmer survey to explore the perspe...

Since 2003, the Sustainable Control Of Parasites in Sheep (SCOPS) group have provided the UK sheep farming industry with guidance on ways to mitigate the development and dissemination of anthelmintic resistance (AR). However our empirical understanding of sheep farmers’ influences towards such ‘best practice’ parasite control approaches is limited,...

An early adoption of ecological management practices by farmers is a potential route to achieve sustainable and greener goals for agriculture. This briefing note outlines an economic assessment of four different ecological practices on Scottish livestock farms. The ecological practices used are; ecological area, reducing farm inputs, organic adopti...

Well-managed legume-based food systems are uniquely positioned to curtail the existential challenge posed by climate change through the significant contribution that legumes can make toward limiting Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. This potential is enabled by the specific functional attributes offered only by legumes, which deliver multiple co-ben...

This document presents the results of Task 3.2 (farm technical-economic performance) in workpackage (WP) 3 (farm performance of ecological agriculture) of the LIFT project. The overall aim of Task 3.2 is to assess and compare technical-economic farm performance across the European Union (EU) depending on the degree of ecological approaches adopted...

A rapid evidence assessment

Dairy is a key investment sector for the Government of Malawi. On 1 October 2016, the Malawi Revenue Authority announced that milk, which until then had been exempted from value added tax (VAT), was going to be taxed at the standard rate of 16.5 percent. The measure has been met with strong opposition and thus, was short lived (eliminated in May 20...

Understanding the cost-effectiveness of sealice treatment measures used on Scottish Salmon farms

This technical report is about the analysis of farmers' social performances conducted in the WP33 of LIFT project. A comparative analysis across 5 European case studies was done on farmers' working conditions in livestock and crops farms.

Intensive agriculture and meat-based westernized diets have brought a heavy environmental burden to the planet. Legumes, or pulses, are members of the large Fabaceae (Leguminosae) family, which comprise about 5% of all plant species. They are ancient crops whose popularity both for farmers and consumers has gone through several stages of acceptance...

This research analyses the impact that the level of understanding of date marking (among other influences) has on the food waste behaviour of consumers in the European Union focusing on a comparison between European Union countries. The data were extracted from the Dataset Flash Eurobarometer 425: Food waste and date marking (European Commission in...

Food safety, whether actual or perceived, is one of the major reasons for food waste along the agri‐food supply chain. Food safety hazards at farm level such as mycotoxin contamination of feed, overuse of antimicrobials in livestock disease control, and zoonotic disease incursion may lead to food unfit for human consumption and thus waste. Given th...

From analysing trade and infrastructures, a map has been produced detailing legume food supply chains. Rooted in project case studies and the Legume Innovation Network (LIN) workshops, the analysis will cover both conventional and organic production. Production, location, processing, actors, infrastructure, products, prices and markets have been an...

The scope of this report is to provide examples of best practises for commercialising grain legumes, including pulses and extending to forage legumes in the food- and feed- (including industrial feedstock) sectors, and ingredient- and processed-product markets. Commercialisation is defined here as, ‘making the crop or grain legume-based product ava...

The scope of this report is to provide examples of best practices for commercialising grain legumes, including pulses and extending to forage legumes in the food- and feed- (including industrial feedstock) sectors, and ingredient- and processed-product markets. Commercialisation is defined here as, ‘making the crop or grain legume-based product ava...

The paper analyses the uptake of animal health and welfare technologies by livestock farmers focusing on the identification of different behavioral patterns occurring in subpopulations of farmers and the assessment of the effect socio-economic and attitudinal factors have on these patterns. The technologies of interest include new genomic technolog...

Sources and quantities of milk loss in primary production are presented in this paper through an analysis of results from a 2018 survey. Responses from 43 dairy farms in Scotland showed that milk losses occurred due to withdrawal periods for veterinary treatment, parlor infrastructure, and lapses in management routine. A partial life cycle assessme...

This study contributes to the household food waste literature by helping us to understand the personal and social factors that influence our use of expiry-date labels on dairy products. It uses an extended theory of planned behaviour (TPB) model with the additional variables of habit and food waste attitudes as well as two upstream expiry-date beha...

This questionnaire is for the survey to farmers that is to be carried out in the LIFT project, to at least 1,500 farms across the European Union (EU) in the LIFT case study areas. The LIFT large-scale farmer survey represents a key task that provides value added to the LIFT project and informs EU policy analysis as a whole. The innovation is that i...

This deliverable D2.1 of the LIFT project presents the conceptual framework on farmers’ up‐take of ecological approaches across the supply chain. The framework combines behavioural theories on individual decision‐making with drivers and methodological considerations related to economic decision‐making. Furthermore, deliverable D2.1 presents a syste...

This study analyses the impact of the transfer of technological information (among other a priori identified factors) on the uptake of innovative crop technologies using structural equation modelling of data from a representative survey of Scottish crop farmers. The model explains 83% of the variance in current technological uptake behaviour and 63...

In the context of national and cross-national efforts to reduce the quantity of food wasted by consumers, there is growing interest in the role of date labelling. Recent proposals by policy makers and the food industry to address dairy product waste have included streamlining date-label application and encouraging the use of best-before dates where...

Food waste is recognised as being one of the major global challenges in achieving a sustainable future. Currently very little is known about how much food is wasted in primary production. This study uses a qualitative approach to examine farmers’ views on food waste and losses occurring on soft fruit and vegetable farms. Semi-structured interviews...

In this paper, we assess the recent and anticipated changes on Scotland’s livestock-producing crofts, using a representative survey of Scottish farmers undertaken in 2013. We find that crofters are similar to other livestock farmers, both inside and outside of the traditional crofting counties, in terms of age, years of involvement in the holding a...

This plan will formalises specific operations (meetings and agendas), at Work Package (WP) and sub-WP level for the first 12 months of the TRUE project. The plan identifies and facilitates the necessary co-ordination to help ensure the timely delivery and success of linked project activities, meetings and workshops. This plan will also help inform...

Increasing woodland area in the United Kingdom is strongly supported in policies, but there is evidence of low rates of new planting, infrequent uptake of farm forestry, and negative attitudes to woodland among farmers. Additionally, there is a wider context of increasing farm diversification, and a need for greater understanding of farmers' attitu...

Nematode control in sheep, by strategic use of anthelmintics, is threatened by the emergence of roundworms populations that are resistant to one or more of the currently available drugs. In response to growing concerns of Anthelmintic Resistance (AR) development in UK sheep flocks, the Sustainable Control of Parasites in Sheep (SCOPS) initiative wa...

Increased demand for protein rich nutrition and a limited land capacity combine to create a food supply issue which imposes greater dependence on phosphorus, required for yield maximization in crops for humans, and for animal feeds. To determine the technical and environmental efficiency of diverse milk production systems, this work evaluates the u...

In this paper we broaden the debate on agri-environmental scheme participation to include farm woodland expansion and renewable energy production, developing a conceptualisation of ‘agri-environmental diversification’. Utilising structural equation modelling, we assess a telephone survey of 2416 Scottish farmers, undertaken in 2013. Findings demons...

The European Commission has established Societal Challenge Advisory Groups to provide consistent and consolidated advice - by way of opinions, recommendations and reports - on relevant research objectives and scientific, technological and innovation priorities for its strategic and annual work programmes. Our Societal Challenge 2 Advisory Group inc...

Reform of the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) contributes to uncertainty in farm planning and a number of studies have examined farmer intentions to possible future support scenarios. This paper extends this literature by examining the effect of past reform on influencing farmer intentions towards the most recent reform of the CAP. Agricultural...

The paper analyses the impact that European Union citizens’ access to information on climate change has on their awareness of carbon capture and storage (CCS), perceived risks and benefits of using CCS and stated choice of preferred CCS options. We use a Eurobarometer dataset about awareness/acceptance of CCS and run structural equation models (SEM...

Structural equation modelling and survey data were used to test determinants' influence on farmers' intentions towards Escherichia coli O157 on-farm control. Results suggest that farmers more likely to show willingness to spend money/time or vaccinate to control Escherichia coli O157 are those: who think farmers are most responsible for control; wh...

The paper examines the impact of determinants on purchasing of eco-labelled products and waste separation for recycling in Cyprus and Sweden. The analysis uses logistic regression and Eurobarometer survey data. Results show that policy measures could be targeted to dealing with situational factors (e.g., availability of recycling services) (more so...

This paper illustrates the impacts of two potential CAP reform scenarios on beef farmers in Scotland post 2015 using an optimising farm level model. These results are then compared with farmers' perception about the policy changes, captured during a farmer intentions survey. The model results suggest that beef farms suffer a loss in farmer net marg...

The EU’s export refund policy has long been a source of controversy for its perceived impacts on third country markets. However, the EU Commission maintain that these concerns are largely historic as CAP reforms mean that export refunds are now used infrequently. The purpose of this article is therefore to assess the impacts of refunds in the wake...

A set of choice related interventions exist for ‘nudging’ individuals towards socially desirable behaviours. Conversely, regulation, which we refer as ‘budging’, implies a reduction in the choice-set for these individuals. We compare the voluntary adoption of water quality management techniques between farmers within a designated Nitrate Vulnerable...

Agriculture across the globe needs to produce "more with less." Productivity should be increased in a sustainable manner so that the environment is not further degraded, management practices are both socially acceptable and economically favorable, and future generations are not disadvantaged. The objective of this paper was to compare the environme...

Livestock production has been criticized for its effect on greenhouse gas emissions and policy makers are now supporting actions to reduce these impact. Voluntary adoption of these actions will be precluded by the farmer perception of the risks from a changing climate. We employ a latent class clustering approach to understand the heterogeneity wit...

Although climate change is a major challenge facing the world today, a considerable proportion of the general public in the UK and other Western countries have been found to be sceptical of the issue. Given that livestock farming is a major contributor to climate change, this study explored the extent to which climate change scepticism prevailed am...

This study examines the impact of some main determinants of environmental behaviour, a priori identified in the scientific literature, on the Greek and British citizens' percep- tions about environmental protection and their actions to fight climate change. The study used Eurobarometer data and logistic regression and identified factors signifi- ca...

The paper analyses the impact of a priori determinants of biosecurity behaviour of farmers in Great Britain. We use a dataset collected through a stratified telephone survey of 900 cattle and sheep farmers in Great Britain (400 in England and a further 250 in Wales and Scotland respectively) which took place between 25 March 2010 and 18 June 2010....

Dairy farming is an industry which could potentially mitigate a large amount of greenhouse gas emissions. However, perception and acceptance towards climate change is a significant barrier to voluntary adoption of best practice techniques. A number of countries have set targets for reducing emissions, of which Scotland has one of the most ambitious...

This paper analyses the impact of a priori identified determinants on stated willingness to change usual place of shopping in order to be able to buy more animal welfare friendly food products of consumers in nine European Union countries. We used Eurobarometer data and structural equation models with observed and latent variables. The results show...

Nitrate Vulnerable Zones (NVZ) are employed as compulsory instruments to meet standards on EU water quality. Farmers operating in NVZs face a number of restrictions on agricultural activity and a greater requirement for record keeping in relation to timing and quantities of nitrogen inputs used. This paper presents results of a survey into the atti...

This paper presents a cross-sectoral analysis of land use decision-making, undertaken to provide an evidence base for government policy development. Key informant interviews and a quantitative survey were conducted with land managers across Scotland. Analysis of current attitudes towards and priorities for land use was undertaken with private, publ...

Results of national and pan-European consumer surveys and the growth in the demand for so-called “animal-friendly” food products suggest that consumers within the European Union (EU) show a high level of concern for the welfare of farm animals. This article analyses the determinants of British consumers' behaviour toward animal welfare using struct...

The Scottish red meat industry is a major part of the Scottish agricultural economy and is known for producing high-quality beef and lamb. Beef and lamb that are produced and processed in Scotland and according to a quality-assured production specification carry the EU “Protected Geographical Indications” (PGI) name of “Scotch.” In addition, red me...

The paper analyses the land use behaviour of Scottish land managers and the factors influencing it in the current context of the EU rural land use policies. The analysis employs a frequently used behavioural economics method, namely structural equation modelling (SEM). Central to the empirical analysis in this paper is a cross-section database cont...

This paper analyses factors influencing Scottish dairy farmers’ intentions to change size of business in response to milk quota abolition. The analysis uses structural equation modelling and is based on survey data collected in 2009 through telephone interviews with 533 farmers. Results suggest that farmers who (1) intend to leave their farm to chi...

Nitrate Vulnerable Zones (NVZ) were introduced in response to the Nitrates Directive (91/676/EEC) which states that all EU countries must reduce the nitrate in drinking water to a maximum of 50 mg/l. Farmers within a designated NVZ must adhere to strict rules over the timing and application of nitrogen from organic and inorganic sources. In Scotlan...

The environment in which a breeding female lives prior to conception and during the early stages of her pregnancy has striking effects on oocytes developing in the ovarian follicle and on early embryos in the reproductive tract. Of the various environmental factors known to affect oocyte and embryo development, altered nutrition during this critica...

The recent rise in food prices has increased the concern about the choice of a healthy food basket, especially in the context of the discussion around the formulation of a National Food Policy for Scotland. This concern has brought back the interest in the price and expenditure demand systems as they provide information about consumers’ food decisi...

Results of national and pan-European consumer surveys and the growth in the demand for so-called “animal friendly” food products suggest that consumers within the European Union show a high level of concern for the welfare of farm animals. This paper analyses the determinants of British consumers’ behaviour towards animal welfare using structural e...

This research analyses the impacts of a scientific advance that improves animal welfare, upon the environment and trade in Scotland using partial equilibrium (PE) modelling. The science improves pig neonatal survival through improved (high fibre) sow diets used before mating. Our model simulates the effects of animal welfare changes on the pig prod...

Nitrate Vulnerable Zones (NVZ) were introduced in response to the Nitrates Directive (91/676/EEC) which states that all EU countries must reduce the nitrate in drinking water to a maximum of 50mg/l. Farmers within a designated NVZ must adhere to strict rules over the timing and application of nitrogen from organic and inorganic sources. In Scotland...

Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) offers a theoretical basis for developing an understanding of the relationships between attitudes and behaviour. This paper imposes the SEM framework to a compulsory regulation which focuses on reducing diffuse water pollution, namely Nitrate Vulnerable Zones (NVZ). We use a data set collected through a farm surv...

This paper aims to identify the factors underlying farmers' propensity to participate in organic farming programmes in a Romanian rural region that confronts non-point source pollution. For this, we employ structural equation modelling with latent variables using a specific data set collected through an agri-environmental farm survey in 2001. The m...

This paper analyses the impact of trade on environment in Romania using a partial equilibrium model of bilateral trade in beef between Romania and the EU. We use a recursive dynamic model to analyse beef production and trade and adjust it as to include a component to evaluate the impact of liberalised trade due to Romania’s accession to the EU...

Summary Legumes in low input systems are becoming increasingly important. The socio- economic implication of the adoption of novel legumes species has been assessed in sheep and dairy cattle grazing systems in Europe using a biological model which has been linked to linear programming models. In the economic sub-model, the mathematical programming...

To identify relative wage impacts of immigration, we make use of licensing requirements in the Norwegian construction sector that give rise to exogenous variation in immigrant employment shares across trades. Individual panel data reveal substantially lower wage growth for workers in trades with rising immigrant employment than for other workers. S...

This article uses random utility theory to analyse the economic and environmental trade-offs at farm level in a Romanian rural area confronting water pollution on the basis of survey data. To underline the impact of socio-economic variables in the decision-making process at farm level as regards environmental choices, a binary logit model is estima...

The paper gives a range of sustainable agricultural policy recommendations, based on the results of the previous CEESA research phases. We begin by a brief presentation of the Romanian case study dealing with the environmental awareness of farmers, measured by means of agri-environmental indicators and discrete choice modelling. Then, we present th...