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This paper presents an assessment of emerging livestock-based greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation schemes that link the uptake of environmentally beneficial breeding practices to carbon offset schemes. Using the example of genomic selection for feed efficiency by cattle producers in Alberta Canada, we explored the potential effect of spatial heterogeneity on producer incentive to participate in these schemes. We model three representative cow-calf operations in three agroecological zones and incorporate region specific breeding, economic and environmental factors. Our results show that environmental and economic outcomes differ spatially, and that the additional revenue from the existing offset scheme is inadequate to incentivize producers in specific regions. The priority for policy makers is to implement a differential payment scheme that accounts for specific sources of spatial heterogeneity in environmental and economic tradeoffs.

This article introduces the special section on consumers and trust. It discusses how the concept of trust has been treated in the literature and identifies concepts of institutional trust and generalized trust that permeate much of the trust literature. An introduction to the five papers in the special section is provided and common themes across the papers are identified. The papers in the special section provide new empirical insights into the drivers and outcomes of consumer trust in food, with applications to environmental attributes, nanotechnology and functional food, as well as a focus on the relationship between firm-level initiatives (cause-related marketing, branding) and consumer trust. A common policy theme throughout the papers, across different study contexts and in different countries, is that institutional trust remains important and is a shared responsibility across public and private sector actors.