277 - Swine Producer Identities: Understanding Perceptions of a Good Producer

Studies on the social-psychological framework known as farmer identity have been conducted in the US, EU, and Australia. The focus of these studies is on understanding how farmer beliefs (i.e. Identities) translate into on-farm practices. For example, in 2015, Iowa farmers were surveyed and four identities emerged when asked which items were important to being a "Good Farmer." Those identities were used to predict the support of soil and/or water policies in the state. Here, for the first time, we explore the identities of livestock producers. Specifically, Pennsylvania swine producer identities. Data were collected as part of a state-wide biosecurity survey. Eighty-four respondents answered some part of the survey, while 50 respondents completed all 31 items of the “Good Producer” question. Principal components analysis (PCA) was used to explore producer perception of a good producer (i.e. producer identities). Using the Kaiser-Meyer-Okin Measure (KMO=0.532) and Barrtlett’s Test of Sphericity (sig. = 0.000) we determined PCA results to be acceptable for exploratory purposes. Five producer identities (friendly conservationist, civically-savvy, willing naturalist, productivist, and appearance-minded) were identified, explaining 58.15% of the variance in these data. Reliability analysis confirmed the strength of items defining each component (i.e. identity). These identities are being used in discussion with PA swine producers to understand how producers self-identify. These identities will be used to predict whether a producer has a formal biosecurity plan written.