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By JANET KRAYDEN
CAPITAL
GAINS
Lifeon the front line
Farmers are on the front line
of our food production. Daily, they are
battling the elements, including nasty,
uncooperative weather, invasive insects,
disease, and weeds that choke and steal
the nutrients from healthy crops. And this
year, they faced a short growing season
(emphasized by #Harvest14).
It is a risky time to be in farming, and
many farmers are reviewing their risk
management options.
When you think of your risk manage-
ment toolbox, do you think of research
and innovation as part of your arsenal?
Yet, access to new crop varieties and ge-
netics helps farmers manage risk.
The modern agriculture methods used
today are based on giant leaps in genetic
plant-breeding technology. The science
that farmers use every day on their farms
allows them to manage a risky, short
growing season. It also introduces a new
realm of possibility for production in a
normal growing season that previous gen-
erations could only dream about.
Two areas of risk that need manage-
ment are consumer perception and satisfy-
ing consumer demand. Gauging consumer
trends is becoming increasingly complex
and risky, since these trends do not always
make sense. Yet, these trends do and will
affect producers’ long-term operation
sustainability.
Deborah Whale, a seventh-generation
Ontario farmer, recently expressed the
frustration many farmers feel at an “ideas”
conference near Toronto. “The anti-mod-
ern agriculture message is eating away
at the foundations of this mighty indus-
try,” she explained. “If it eats away at the
foundations, then it will surely destroy
the future of one of the greatest success
stories on the Earth—and that is Canadi-
an agriculture.”
At the conference, Whale communicat-
ed that old-fashioned, small-scale farming
practices are not better than how produc-
ers farm today. The land management
practices and poor food-safety protocols
of the last century would put too many
pressures on the environment and would
not allow us to produce what farmers are
outputting today. It would not feed us the
way we demand to be fed for the low cost
of food we have come to expect.
Farmers and industry alike are saying
that more communication with the public
is needed, but whose job is it anyway?
Agriculture and agri-food is more than
a career choice, it is a way of life and a
culture. We, too, are consumers, not just
food suppliers, and we all care about
our industry. We need to communicate
that by sharing our passion and personal
perspective.
Agriculture More Than Ever hosted a
“Social Media 101 for Agvocates” webinar
with Megan Madden, from southpaw pr.
Madden explained that, when using Twit-
ter, you need to share credible, balanced
information: “Twitter is a social communi-
ty you are building, not a propaganda tool.”
She also said to “tweet from the heart,”
engage in conversation about what you
are interested in and, if you disagree with
something, push back by asking for more
information.
Is it as simple as that?
Recently, Sarah Schultz (@NurseLoves-
Farmr), a farm wife and blogger, directly
challenged a Starbucks campaign that
claims to “help farmers” but actually
dictates to farmers how they should farm.
Sarah, a social media stalwart, and her hus-
band Jay, an Alberta Wheat Commission re-
gional representative, farm near Standard.
Other farmers from across North America
joined Sarah’s commentary. Her engage-
ment, coming from a farmer’s personal
perspective, made the public and Starbucks
rethink. Not all urbanites are hostile to
modern agriculture farming practices,
but they are actively seeking information.
If you are on Twitter (and many farmers
are), sharing your farm event experiences
and what happens on your farm is a sure
way to have urbanites “follow” you from
large urban centres as far away as New
York and L.A.—they seem to want to learn
more about farming.
Through social media, many grassroots
farmer communication efforts are emerg-
ing, such as @FarmersOfCanada, sharing
“a week in the life of Canadian farmers,”
and @AskTheFarmers, which answers
questions like, “Where does your food
come from?” and “How is it raised?”
Can we really influence public discus-
sion on food and farming by engaging
in conversations using social media and
other public venues to explain our story?
As Megan Madden from southpaw pr says,
“Keep calm and agvocate on.”
Janet Krayden works for the Canadian Ag-
ricultural Human Resource Council and lives
outside Ottawa. Originally from a mixed farm
near Acme, AB, she specializes in agriculture
communications. Follow her on Twitter,
@CdnAgvocate.
Winter
2015
grainswest.com
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COMMUNICATION FROMFARMERS IS VITAL TOSUCCESS