Susan Crowell, editor of Farm and Dairy, has a great column today advising farmers and ranchers to do a better job of telling the story of the good things they do to the American public. The column follows a similar theme to one of this week's Capital Press editorials.
It may be difficult for an individual family farm to have its own public relations department, but farmers in general need to get far more PR savvy. The American people don't understand why farm subsidies are needed. They don't understand why egg producers need battery cages. They don't understand why you use water by the acre foot — can't even picture it — when they use water by the cup or gallon.
If you don't show them, some activist somewhere with a decidedly different point of view will.
It's great that you are all so good at talking to the farm press when we call to talk to you. But you need to talk to the mainstream press too. And you would be well served to have some sort of online website presence to take your message straight to consumers too.
17 hours ago
1 comment:
You are so right about the need for individual farmers to speak up for themselves and for the industry. That is the exact reason I started blogging and writing a weekly farm column for our local newspaper. I may only reach seventy or eighty people a day with the story of our farm, but I treasure each and every one of them.
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