Data on Swiss public's acceptance and sustainability perceptions of food produced with chemical, digital and mechanical weed control measures and the influence of information source on technology perception in agriculture

This article describes data from an online survey conducted with the Swiss public from the two biggest language regions (German and French) in Switzerland. The survey was conducted in February 2023. Participants were recruited through a professional panel provider and quotas were used for age, gender and language region. The final sample contained 485 respondents. In the first part of the survey, respondents provided basic sociodemographic information. In the second part, their sustainability perceptions regarding four different weed management practices (full-surface spraying, hoeing machine, spot spraying and precise spraying) were investigated. Respondents were then randomly assigned to one of five experiment groups, in which information on a hoeing and a milking robot was presented, using 5 different information sources (male/female farmer, male/female scientist, no source). Technology perception was assessed using several questions and aspects (e.g. perception of economic, environmental and social sustainability). Finally, respondents answered questions assessing their attitudes towards the perception of farmers, food technology neophobia, chemophobia and the importance of naturalness. The survey can be used and adapted to different contents, aiming to investigate public perception of smart farming technologies and the influence of information sources on technology perception.