Enhancing trust in farm assurance systems: a multistakeholder perspective

Farm assurance systems provide an infrastructure (standards and certification services) to ensure food safety, animal welfare and environmentally responsible practices at farms. Yet, farm assurance systems face challenges that threaten their legitimacy and social licence to operate (SLO) – especially when public shows increased concerns about the social and environmental impact of farming.

Drawing from the SLO literature, we explore the relationship between key SLO constructs (distributional fairness, procedural fairness and confidence in governance) and trust in farm assurance in two independent studies: a qualitative study with farmers and assurance providers (N=37) and a survey of general public (N=500). The results suggest that (from a perspective of farmers and assurance providers), gaps in accountability for impact of assurance, gaps in inclusiveness of farmers and inconsistencies in governance impact trust in farm assurance.

Distributional fairness, procedural fairness, and confidence in governance have positive effects on consumers’ trust in the farms’ assurance system, however consumers’ engagement with food systems has unique influence against the three constructs. Combined, the two studies serve as a platform for a conceptual model of trust building for farm assurance.