Assessing Food Safety Concepts on the Dairy Farm: The Case of Chemical Hazards

Adaptive conjoint analysis was used to elicit farmers' and experts' preferences for attributes of improving food safety with respect to chemical hazards on the dairy farm. Groups of respondents were determined by cluster analysis based on similar farmers' and experts' perceptions of food safety improvement. Results show differences in priority of the more important attributes. However, respondents in all groups valued "identification of treated cows" as one of the most important attributes. The results provide the processing industry and extension service with a better understanding of aspects that may form farmers' perceptions of improving food safety, and thus help to define the message for targeting different farmer groups