Identifying the factors impacting on farmers' intention to adopt animal friendly practices.

Brazil, one of the leading countries in livestock production, has not yet developed legislation considering animal welfare issues and most of the actions to improve farm animal welfare (FAW) standards are developed by livestock industries and government focusing in meet the demands of exporting countries. Such actions resulted in FAW protocols and manuals for adoption of best management practices. In this context, farmers' decisions are of particular importance as they may comply with current FAW protocols or even decide to provide better FAW standards than required. A present example of farmers' decisions to provide better FAW standards than required by FAW protocols is in the adoption of environmental enrichment in pig farming. This practice is widely available to pig farmers, however, anecdotal evidence shows that the adoption rate is low. This study uses the theory of planned behavior (TPB) as a framework to identify the socio-psychological factors that influence pig farmers' intention to adopt environmental enrichment on their farms. The TPB hypothesizes that intention is determined by three psychological constructs: attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. These three constructs are derived from behavioral, normative, and control beliefs, respectively. Self-identity was added as an additional construct to explain intention. A survey with 185 farmers was conducted. We used Partial-Least-Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to identify the impact of attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and self-identity on farmers' intention to adopt environmental enrichment on their farms. We used MIMIC models to identify the most important beliefs underlying farmers' intention to adopt environmental enrichment in their farms. Results show that the intention of farmers to adopt was mainly determined by their positive perceptions about their own capability to adopt environmental enrichment (perceived behavioral control), followed by their perceptions about the social pressure to adopt it (subjective norms), their positive evaluations of adoption (attitude), and self-identity. The most important behavioral beliefs were 'increase productivity', and 'decrease animals stress'. The most important normative beliefs were 'family', 'neighbor farmers', 'pig buyers', and 'experts'. The most important control belief was 'receive bonus when selling pigs'. These results revealed important implications to design public and private interventions aimed to stimulate the adoption of animal friendly practices.

Fatores estratégicos explorados pelas empresas processadoras de lácteos para inserir-se no mercado de bebidas à base de soja / Strategic factors explored by dairy processing companies for their insertion in the soy-based beverage market

Esta pesquisa pretende caracterizar e compreender a inter-relação entre fatores de natureza mercadológica e competitiva, considerados pelos gestores de empresas brasileiras processadoras de lácteos para se inserir no mercado de bebidas à base de soja. O método utilizado foi o de estudo multi-caso, aplicando como técnicas de pesquisa: i) coleta de dados secundários; ii) entrevistas com tomadores de decisão em duas empresas brasileiras, que atuam no setor lácteo e que estão se inserindo no mercado de bebidas à base de soja; iii) entrevistas com especialistas do setor lácteo; iv) grupos focais com consumidores representantes de segmentos-alvo do mercado de bebidas à base de soja. Os resultados revelam que as empresas estudadas perceberam o mercado de bebidas à base de soja como uma oportunidade em função de seu forte crescimento decorrente de mudanças nos hábitos de consumo. Essas organizações exploram a possibilidade de ampliar e diversificar suas linhas de produtos, aproveitando-se de fatores competitivos favoráveis como a flexibilidade organizacional e o compartilhamento de suas estruturas de produção e de comercialização. Porém, existe a percepção de restrições relacionadas ao acesso a recursos financeiros e ao desenvolvimento das capacitações necessárias para empreender a consolidação da marca e diferenciar seus produtos nesse novo mercado.

The present paper aims to characterize and understand the interrelationship among market and competitive factors that are considered by Brazilian managers for the insertion of dairy processing companies in the soy-based beverage market. The method used was the multi-case study, applied through the following research techniques: i) collection of secondary data; ii) interviews with the decision makers of two Brazilian companies that act in the dairy sector and that are being inserted in the soy-based beverage market; iii) interviews with experts in the dairy sector; iv) focus groups with consumers that represent the target segment in the soy-based beverage market. The results reveal that the studied companies read the soy-based beverage market as an opportunity for their growth in the market due to changes in consumption habits. These organizations explore the possibility of expanding and diversifying their product lines using favorable competitive factors such as organizational slack and sharing structures of production and marketing. However, there is an awareness of restrictions related to the access to financial resources and development of capacities required to undertake the consolidation of the brand and make differentiated products on the market.