Farm and Food Facts

The agricultural trade associations, both state and local, are actively engaging the consuming public to gain a stronger and less passive foothold in social networking spaces. This is great to see since advocacy organizations that seek to disseminate misinformation about agriculture practices and production have long used the Web as an effective communications tool.

A couple of months back we wrote a news release to distribute at the 2009 Commodity Classic in Dallas that addressed the need for the entire ag community to step forward online, below is that release. The trend has not been reversed, but I am glad to see so many now engaged in the effort.

v-Fluence Data Show Spikes in Negative Content on Critical Ag Topics Like High Fructose Corn Syrup, Animal Welfare and Ethanol

Dallas (Feb 26, 2009) – The new arena for issues affecting farmers and the agriculture industry is not the local dealership or off-season coffee shop, but online, and groups opposed to producer interests are seeking to dominate the discussion, said Randy Krotz, senior vice president of v-Fluence Interactive, a leading source for online analysis for America’s agriculture industry.

“The new frontier in food is online, but what’s disturbing is that farmers’ adversaries, those opposed to the production agriculture industry, have undue influence in the debate,” said Krotz, who has also served as marketing director for the National Corn Growers Association and is attending this week’s Commodity Classic. “Because studies show Americans rely on online sources, including highly popular social-networking sites, more than radio, TV or newspapers combined, the ag industry and producer community must join the conversation and defend their interests.”

Recognizing this trend, v-Fluence uses patent-pending analytics to monitor and measure what people find on the Internet when they turn to it for information, and helps companies influence that content where appropriate to support their objectives. v-Fluence analyzes the nature of online searches, blog postings, social-networking spaces, listservs, discussion boards and other kinds of content online, and has evaluated the online environment of such hot-button ag issues as the alleged health effects of high fructose corn syrup, animal welfare, ethanol feedstocks and tax credits and incentives. What is worrisome is that many people searching on these issues are being informed by an enormous and growing amount of online activity that does not serve the interests of the American farmer. For example:

High-Fructose Corn Syrup

* Negative comments about high fructose corn syrup in social and consumer-generated media channels have increased by more than 60 percent in the past year.
* More than three-quarters of what people find online when they search high fructose corn syrup is negative, most of it alleging negative health effects. And nearly that much – some 70 percent – of the content appeared since last July.

Animal Welfare

* When people search for information on beef, the majority of the content they find actively supports the grass-fed or organic variety. Organic pork and cage-free-egg producers also comprise a significant and growing portion of search results for pork and chicken.
* Blog postings on beef, pork and chicken similarly include an imbalanced perspective on animal care issues.

Ethanol

* There is more online search and content regarding ethanol today than ever before.
* Much of the online debate continues to center on the source utilized for ethanol production and its environmental impact.

“Issues that impact agriculture are being searched and discussed online in numbers like never before,” said Krotz, who cited v-Fluence research showing that more than 10 million searches are conducted each month on agriculture industry- and farming-related topics.

“A relatively small number of anti-farming groups are gaining in influence,” Krotz said. “The inter-connected nature of the Web means that this small group effectively coordinates the activities of nearly 400 groups that target food and ag issues, influencing policy, market conditions and consumers.”

Companies, producers and related groups whose success is tied to the agriculture industry should get proactive and go online, using well defined, effective and widely established tactics that are now being used against them, Krotz said, for example:

* Analyzing search language to determine the words and phrases people use most when searching key topics;
* Publishing informative and updated information on the companies’ own Web sites using tactics that light up and support your and your supporters’ content;
* Engaging in effective pay-per-click advertisements with real conversion measurements that go beyond impressions and click-through rates.

“At a time when so much of the content is coming from interests opposed to traditional agriculture, it’s critical for this community to make its voice heard,” Krotz said.

We have all experienced that moment in the movie theatre when something that is familiar to us from our day to day life just isn’t represented well on the big screen. Usually these moments are accidental, or at least thought not noticeable to the vast majority of the audience. Television may even be guiltier, but then again I am generally more forgiving to that format of entertainment.

The most memorable and flagrant example of misrepresenting a situation occurred for me over the holiday season while I was watching a DVD with my kids. The movie was called Barnyard, a 2006 animated production about farm animals that can talk when humans are not looking or listening. An additional important metamorphosis that occurs to these critters is they stand upright whenever there is no risk of disclosure. I am pretty sure this might actually be accurate, ‘cause many a time I thought I heard voices and the faint odor of a cigarette coming from the barn back in my childhood. Oh well.

My concern is specifically related to the cattle herd, the main characters in the movie. The two lead animals are bulls. The voices of Ben and Otis are Sam Elliot and Kevin James respectfully. These are two of my favorite actors and of course who doesn’t love Sam Elliot’s voice. Ironically, well known for the “Beef, it’s what’s for Dinner” campaign. These two male animals stand up proudly through a fair part of this movie, clearly displaying their udders, yes that’s right udders. You know that low hanging device near the back end of a cow that gives milk. Let’s be clear, bulls don’t have udders, they have testicles. I totally understand the producers of Barnyard not wanting to show a bulls private parts flopping around like they generally do on a full grown animal, but I completely disagree with replacing it with an udder, only found on females, or as known on the farm — cows.

The obvious question is whether or not it is important for Hollywood to accurately portray the anatomy of the bovine species. It would have been easy to simply leave off the udder on the males, but of course noticeable. Some parents may have had to answer the question; “hey dad why does she have those parts and he doesn’t?” But holy cow everybody we’re talking about milk here, the mainstay of a healthy diet, right? Shouldn’t we have the responsibility of accurately educating our kids; but let’s face it, it’s likely a large majority of adults don’t understand the difference either. It would be interesting to know if the developers of this movie actually knew they were making a mistake. Hmmm?

Changes To Our Land

The main focus of my blog is to provide a fair and balanced point of view on many of the topics facing food production and consumption today. From the treatment of animals to the balance between producing corn for food or fuel, my goal is to take on any subject in this arena where I can provide information or an opinion that potentially will be of value to individuals looking to gain a different or new perspective on these issues.

Throughout most of my 20 professional years in business and communications, I have worked within companies that have threads that tie those organizations back to production agriculture and food in general. So in my everyday work life I have been more than slightly sheltered from the majority of the U.S. population that has little interest or knowledge regarding how food ends up on their plate, or let alone how it is actually produced.

My thread to farming and a family farm can more accurately be described as a log chain. I am fortunate to have a family that remains in agriculture in North Central, Kansas, on a farm that has been in my family for decades and generations. I suppose over the years nearly every kind of farm animal and crop that would sustain itself has been produced and eaten on that farm. We all realize it is a way of life that is quickly slipping through my fathers worn and weathered hands.

A month hardly passes that I don’t hear about the death of another active or retired farmer back home. It is commonplace these days for there not to be any children around to work the land, that trend declined so dramatically in the last third of the 20th century. As I watch this continual decline of the family farm coupled with the complete lack of understanding in the general population regarding food production, I become alarmed at the complete imbalance of educated and reasoned voices discussing food production. It is that very issue that I plan to address.

Posted by Randy Krotz on December 18, 2006

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