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| 4-H North East Livestock Show September 2012 Brainerd, Minn. Registered Red Angus owned by Jack Burt of Jacobson, Minn. Shown by Delaney Nelson- Itasca County 4-H |
Agricultural Communication is a vital field. The field's goal is to to better help people understand about the route food, fiber and many other products take everyday to get to them or how they effect them. My personal goal is to get people out of the dark about where their milk comes from, teach them about how beef cattle are slaughtered and abolish many other production myths.
The United States Environment Protection Agency (EPA) says that less than two percent of the population lives on a farm (http://www.epa.gov/agriculture/ag101/demographics.html). That means over 98% of the population is not connected directly to agriculture. Kids and adults alike these days are not understanding how food is produced and they can be misinformed incredibly easily without the proper educating from agricultural communicators. Farmers and other producers need agricultural communicators to educate the public and to help keep agriculture a clean, positive and welcoming atmosphere. Negative myths equal loss of profit- and no one likes a lost profit.
Therefore, agricultural communicators need to have a broad knowledge of agriculture on a national and international scale, in order to accurately inform their audiences. People in this field have a high appreciation and respect for honesty, integrity and accuracy. Research is our best friend. The current view on agriculture is not always a positive one and that is a battle that agricultural communicators face everyday and are continuing to work on. We have a great deal of work ahead of us, which is good job security at least.
Here is a quick snapshot into some typical tasks for an Agricultural Communicator:
- Update company blog
- Write news releases
- Create newspaper articles
- Edit/produce newsletters
- Produce handouts/brochures
- Update/contribute to company Facebook
- Create videos
- Directly speak with consumers
You can see the trend here. Nothing is truly off limits in the line of tasks, the list could go on and on.
I would like to end this post with some fun facts about agriculture:
Have you consumed food today? Have you drank a liquid other than water? If you answered yes to either of these questions than you should thank a farmer. Do you know how any of these fine products got to you? Many people would say, "Well yes, it came on a truck and bought them in a grocery store." Did you know that milk typically only travels 50 miles or less to reach the grocery store counters? Another fun fact is did you know that food is the most affordable in the United States than in any other country on Earth? I could ramble on and on about all the fascinating facts about agriculture--but I will stop here.
Agricultural Communication plays an important role in the translation of information about food, fiber and many other products. I hope you learned something about agricultural communicators, agriculture in general or at least a cool fact to tell your friends. My next post will be about a recent technological development in the field of Agricultural Communication.
Courtney, it's really good to see someone so passionate about getting the word of true agriculture out there. Honestly, those last few facts were awesome! I wish you didn't have stopped when you did. What is it exactly that you'd like to do in this career field when you graduate?
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you can appreciate my "nerding out" on agriculture. I'm also pleased that you enjoyed my facts. I loved 4-H, and still do. So I hope that sometime during my career I am able to to a part of that organization. My dream job would be to work for the USDA in an effort to spread knowledge of agriculture. I don't even think this job exists, but if it did, I'd be the first one signed up!
ReplyDeleteYou're so right about there being so many "production myths", and those seem to spred like wildfire until everyone who doesn't live on a farm or is directly connected thinks that they are true. I'll admit, when you said you were studying agricultural communication I had no idea what you studying for. Now I see that we need more people in your field to disperse all of the false information about where food comes from. 98% of the US seems like a lot of people to have to educate. ^_^ Especially considering the amount of people in urban settings that have never seen a live cow or any other livestock species for that matter. How can you know about what you've never even seen before? It would be difficult for me to do something like this, but I'm glad that somebody out there is up for the job.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the fact that you stated that you are willing to abolish the myths surrounding agriculture, which can ultimately lead to a loss in profits. One question I do have for you though is how you would respond in a situation where genetically modified organisms entered the picture. So many of the food we eat is modified in some way shape or form. What's you opinion on GMO crops? I personally think that some of the GMO crops are a mistake and are actually going to cause more harm than good in the long run if we aren't careful.
ReplyDeleteI don't have a solid background yet in crops (good thing I'm here at NDSU), but from what I do know, understand and believe about GMO crops is there are for sure two sides to the coin. I see no harmful effects coming into the picture in regards to health to consumers, if that is an issue to you. The only thing I would be careful about, and researchers are working on this, is the purity of the genes. If we get too sophisticated are we letting ourselves become more susceptible to crop disease and other genetic malfunctions? That is a great question that you proposed, one that I have thought about before. I have faith in the research community that they are asking these good questions too and that they are holding themselves to the highest integrity when developing these crops. We are in a stage right now where we need to be very careful about letting our bug brains get in the way of the future, but I think agriculture will always try to keep the simple wholesome roots of which it was founded on.
ReplyDeleteAbdi Erbob Feb 20, 2013 at 11:47
ReplyDeleteI read you’re your with great interest and sounds great even thought I might be the least educated in farm in agricultural products or farm business. I am that agriculture is an important industry for human existence and survival. A lot of people don’t appreciate that though but I wonder what could be the live of billions of people today without the advanced agricultural food and dairy production and with existing advanced technology and research. My question to you will be why do you like this industry and what do you understand about it?
I grew up on a small farm in MN so I know a little bit about how some stuff is done. When I think of agriculture and farming today, I think of mass production of food and large scale farms. I always hear about the terrible living conditions of animals, and how disgusting those farms are. I have heard a number of people tell me that if I have ever seen how chickens, cows, or pigs are raised in mass quantities, and then how they are processed, I would not want to eat any of them. Or if I knew what they did to genetically engineer crops and the chemicals that are put on them, I wouldn't want to eat those either. As a disclaimer, I will say that I am not all that concerned with how food gets to my table. As far as I am concerned it all comes from the grocery store and tastes good, and as long as that keeps happening, I'm not going to look any farther. I am curious, however, as to if there is any truth to how disgusting food may or may not actually be, or is that exactly the kind of rumors and uninformed opinions that you want to get rid of?
ReplyDeleteAbdi: You asked why do I like this industry and what do I understand about it. I don't like this industry--I love it! I come from a very small farm in northern Minnesota and have been immersed in that culture from day one. I have been involved in 4-H, which is an agriculture based organization, for over 13 years. I have done all I can to learn and become exposed to all pieces of agriculture.
ReplyDeleteRobert: what you brought up about the rumors and misinformation is the reason people in my field are needed. I have been to some production plants (large dairies specifically), and have been overly impressed with the quality of life for the animals. There are SO many terrible rumors out there. The people who start these rumors don't do enough research, hardly ever even go to a production plant and are just plain unreasonable. I have all the faith in the world that the food our farmers bring to the grocery stores, is the best food possible. Agriculture is not perfect, but neither is any other industry. We in the field are doing all that we can to continue to produce the safest and more ethically produced food in the world. If you are interested, YouTube search Temple Grandin. She has made enormous strides in the cattle industry, specifically in slaughter plants. She has numerous videos that show the life inside a slaughter plant, along with other great food information. Thanks for being honest about how you feel, glad that people still have faith in good tasty food.
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