At the Farm Progress Show this week, BASF released a new Farm Perspectives Study, conducted earlier this year, comparing consumer and farmer viewpoints on agriculture-related issues based on opinions from more than 9,000 people in seven different countries.
“This is actually the second study, it was first conducted in 2011,” said BASF Technical Crop Production Specialist AJ Woodyard. Conducted in early 2014, it included some 2,100 farmer and 7,233 consumer participants in the U.S., Germany, France, Spain, Brazil, India and China.
“This survey showed the satisfaction levels globally,” said BASF Market Intelligence & Research Manager Brady Spangenberg, noting some of the differences between farmers around the world. “For example, 88% of U.S. growers said they were satisfied with their profession. Compare that with France, where 54% of growers said they were satisfied, you start to see some interesting differences.” There was a three percent increase in U.S. grower satisfaction from 2011.
Nearly all farmers (95.6%) in the seven surveyed countries agree they have a shared responsibility to feed the growing population, but most feel the responsibility is not valued by consumers. Only 40 percent of U.S. farmers feel respected by the general U.S. population. Most U.S. farmers (78.6%) and consumers (67.9%) agree that innovations are necessary to help farmers with the challenge of feeding a growing population, but that still shows a gap in consumer perceptions of the need for new agricultural technology. “Clearly we know there’s an education need, consumers need to be educated on the value of these products,” said Woodyard. “But there’s probably also a piece of complacency in the U.S. because we’ve got food in the supermarkets.”
Spangenberg says the full results of the study will be made public soon. “We’re going to have a global roll out of the study results in a couple of weeks in Europe and after that the results will be available at FarmPerspectivesStudy.com.”
Interview with AJ Woodyard and Brady Spangenberg, BASF