The importance of the messenger in climate change communication to farmers
Agriculture needs to mitigate its impacts and adapt to new environmental conditions. To this end, communicating climate change to farmers is essential but remains a challenge, since many stakeholders (e.g. public administration, sectoral stakeholders, environmentalists) engage with farmers, conveyin...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Taylor & Francis Group
2025-12-01
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| Series: | Italian Journal of Animal Science |
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| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1828051X.2025.2515264 |
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| author | Enrique Muñoz-Ulecia Alberto Bernués María Jesús Carabaño Margalida Joy Daniel Martín-Collado |
| author_facet | Enrique Muñoz-Ulecia Alberto Bernués María Jesús Carabaño Margalida Joy Daniel Martín-Collado |
| author_sort | Enrique Muñoz-Ulecia |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Agriculture needs to mitigate its impacts and adapt to new environmental conditions. To this end, communicating climate change to farmers is essential but remains a challenge, since many stakeholders (e.g. public administration, sectoral stakeholders, environmentalists) engage with farmers, conveying diverse messages about climate change and the role of agriculture. Here we aim to analyse farmers’ perceptions of climate change and how these relate to their trust in different stakeholders. We conducted a survey with 167 livestock farmers across Spain, gathering data about their perceptions on climate change severity and origin, and to what extent its importance has been exaggerated. We also analysed farmers’ trust in different information sources, including farmers associations (i.e. breed associations, farmer organisations and cooperatives), agricultural organisations, technical publications, veterinarians, agricultural firms, government agencies, scientists, environmentalists, animal activists, and the media. Our results show that farmers believe climate change exists but a high proportion are sceptical about its origin and severity. Farmers’ trust in information sources influences their perception of climate change. Farmers who trust public institutions, environmentalists, animal activists, and the media are more likely to view climate change as human-driven and perceive its impacts as severe, rejecting claims of exaggeration. In contrast, those who trust veterinarians, cooperatives, agricultural firms, and farmer organisations tend to see climate change as a hybrid human-natural process and believe its impacts are overstated. The results highlight the need to improve the science-policy-farmers dialogue to make farmers more aware of the potential consequences of climate change on farming and trigger adaptation. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-eaf35368131f4bb2b027a796b2f4641c |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 1594-4077 1828-051X |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-12-01 |
| publisher | Taylor & Francis Group |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Italian Journal of Animal Science |
| spelling | doaj-art-eaf35368131f4bb2b027a796b2f4641c2025-08-20T03:22:08ZengTaylor & Francis GroupItalian Journal of Animal Science1594-40771828-051X2025-12-012411336134410.1080/1828051X.2025.25152642515264The importance of the messenger in climate change communication to farmersEnrique Muñoz-Ulecia0Alberto Bernués1María Jesús Carabaño2Margalida Joy3Daniel Martín-Collado4Departamento de Ciencia Animal, Centro de Investigación y Tecnología Agroalimentaria de Aragón (CITA)Departamento de Ciencia Animal, Centro de Investigación y Tecnología Agroalimentaria de Aragón (CITA)Departamento de Mejora Genética Animal, Centro Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria (INIA-CSIC)Departamento de Ciencia Animal, Centro de Investigación y Tecnología Agroalimentaria de Aragón (CITA)Departamento de Ciencia Animal, Centro de Investigación y Tecnología Agroalimentaria de Aragón (CITA)Agriculture needs to mitigate its impacts and adapt to new environmental conditions. To this end, communicating climate change to farmers is essential but remains a challenge, since many stakeholders (e.g. public administration, sectoral stakeholders, environmentalists) engage with farmers, conveying diverse messages about climate change and the role of agriculture. Here we aim to analyse farmers’ perceptions of climate change and how these relate to their trust in different stakeholders. We conducted a survey with 167 livestock farmers across Spain, gathering data about their perceptions on climate change severity and origin, and to what extent its importance has been exaggerated. We also analysed farmers’ trust in different information sources, including farmers associations (i.e. breed associations, farmer organisations and cooperatives), agricultural organisations, technical publications, veterinarians, agricultural firms, government agencies, scientists, environmentalists, animal activists, and the media. Our results show that farmers believe climate change exists but a high proportion are sceptical about its origin and severity. Farmers’ trust in information sources influences their perception of climate change. Farmers who trust public institutions, environmentalists, animal activists, and the media are more likely to view climate change as human-driven and perceive its impacts as severe, rejecting claims of exaggeration. In contrast, those who trust veterinarians, cooperatives, agricultural firms, and farmer organisations tend to see climate change as a hybrid human-natural process and believe its impacts are overstated. The results highlight the need to improve the science-policy-farmers dialogue to make farmers more aware of the potential consequences of climate change on farming and trigger adaptation.http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1828051X.2025.2515264climate change perceptionfarmers’ truststakeholdersscience-policy-farmers dialogue |
| spellingShingle | Enrique Muñoz-Ulecia Alberto Bernués María Jesús Carabaño Margalida Joy Daniel Martín-Collado The importance of the messenger in climate change communication to farmers Italian Journal of Animal Science climate change perception farmers’ trust stakeholders science-policy-farmers dialogue |
| title | The importance of the messenger in climate change communication to farmers |
| title_full | The importance of the messenger in climate change communication to farmers |
| title_fullStr | The importance of the messenger in climate change communication to farmers |
| title_full_unstemmed | The importance of the messenger in climate change communication to farmers |
| title_short | The importance of the messenger in climate change communication to farmers |
| title_sort | importance of the messenger in climate change communication to farmers |
| topic | climate change perception farmers’ trust stakeholders science-policy-farmers dialogue |
| url | http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1828051X.2025.2515264 |
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