A raíz de la cuantía económica, social y ambiental que tienen las pérdidas y desperdicios de alimentos a nivel mundial y de la poca investigación de este tema en latitudes latinoamericanas, realizamos un estudio en tres grupos de alimentos con el objetivo de determinar la importancia de variables socioeconómicas, características intrínsecas y de comportamiento ante la intención de desperdicio en los hogares costarricenses. Para ello, se recolectó información primaria por medio de encuestas directas sobre la valoración de estas variables mediante escala Likert. Los resultados indican que la importancia de las características intrínsecas varía dependiendo del tipo de producto. Adicionalmente, el modelo indica que a pesar de los resultados en otras latitudes, la intención no depende ni de los ingresos, ni de la educación ni de la edad, que fueron las variables consideradas como indicadores socioeconómicos. Por lo contrario, la intención depende en mayor medida en variables de comportamiento y variables psicológicas.

Household waste represents a big contributor to food waste, especially in higher-income countries. To understand consumer behavior, and therefore food waste, this study addresses food buying and storaging routines, sociodemographic characteristics and intrinsic product characteristics. Food waste has usually been studied in high[1]income countries, especially in Europe and North America. However, this research includes 343 direct interviews with Costa Rican consumers. We constructed a structural equation model using the Theory of planned behavior to understand dairy food waste. Results indicate that the least important determinants of food waste are sociodemographic characteristics, nonetheless, income correlates positively higher waste rates, as expected. Intrinsic characteristics of dairy products were an important determinant of waste; as consumers place more importance on these characteristics, less waste is produced. This is the first study in which food waste includes all of these constructs and that is settled in a developing country. Based on our results and the determinants of food waste, we discuss the political and research implications for household food waste reduction.

Crop protection technologies and their usage are critically discussed issues, both in the public discourse and within the agricultural sector. However, attitudes towards different methods of crop protection have been primarily investigated through surveys thus far. Thus, explicit attitudes can be biased. Furthermore, they can differ between countries. The study aims to contribute to the understanding of explicit and implicit attitudes of two crop protection methods (chemical and genetically modified crop protection) in Costa Rica and Germany. The implicit attitude was measured by a single-category implicit association test. The test was conducted with a total of 441 agricultural students: 208 from Costa Rica and 233 from Germany. The results argue for regional heterogeneity in attitudes towards crop protection methods as genetically modified crop protection is perceived more positive in Costa Rica than in Germany. This might impact the regional acceptance of multilateral policies. The results also highlight the importance of the method selection for the elicitation of attitudes.