聽 聽 聽 聽 The issue of image was at the heart of a presentation to the recent Yorkton Rotary Farmer Appreciation Night.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 The guest speakers; Adele Buettner (CAC) & Pat Beaujot (P.Ag.), with Farm & Food Care Saskatchewan focused in on the need for the agriculture sector to make sure consumers know the good job they do producing food in sustainable, safe ways.
聽 聽 聽 聽 It is something which is obvious, given the change in our world.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 While agriculture remains important, in Saskatchewan the sector accounted for $13.9 billion in exports in Saskatchewan, the personal connection of consumers to the farm has disappeared.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 Today only about now-in-50 Canadians have a direct tie to farms.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 Now we in Saskatchewan might think that is an Ontario situation, skewed by populace cities such as Toronto, but a recent visit to a classroom at Columbia School in Yorkton for a presentation on farming proved the situation is not the case. There was not a student in the classroom from a farm. Many had never been on a farm.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 So the vision our consumers have of farming is no longer personal experience, or even a vision supported by firsthand information from a direct relative, or friend.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 Farming, for many consumers now is as foreign as deep sea fishing, or mining for gold.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 And that creates a situation where the consumer鈥檚 opinion of farming, how it is carried out, and how safe the food they eat is, can be swayed by situational incidents, and outright fabrications.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 Granted the safety record of products headed to consumers is not always good.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 The list of bad things which were deemed safe, were allowed into consumer鈥檚 hands, and then proved deadly, is a long one.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 No one will forget the issues surrounding lead paint, asbestos insulation, the drug Thalidomide, and Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 Interestingly, consumers seem to have given the industrial sector a free pass, even with the record of bad decisions.
聽 聽 聽 聽 Meanwhile, agriculture seems to be the sector consumers are raising many concerns over these days.
聽 聽 聽 聽 A lot of it comes from being less than completely informed.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 The idea of sustainability is an example, as was pointed out at the Rotary evening, farmers in Western Canada were quick to pick up on minimum till systems, and that change has done much to preserve topsoil from wind and water erosion.
聽 聽 聽 聽 But how does the sector get that information to consumers?
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 That will be one of the key roles for the recently former Farm & Food Care Saskatchewan.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 They already have a haughty informative booklet; 鈥楾he Real Dirt on Farming鈥� in print, and it does hold a lot of information on farming which consumers should know.
聽 聽 聽 聽 However, I am not sure the imagery does the farm sector a good service.
聽 聽 聽 聽 Cute calves and goats on page 11, piglets on the next page, and a darling calf with its mother on page 20, feed a stereotype of farming akin to the hip-roofed barn and free range chickens of grade school primers a half century ago.
聽 聽 聽 聽 My wife leafed through the pages at the supper, and made the comment 鈥渁ren鈥檛 they cute鈥� when arriving at the picture of the goats.
聽 聽 聽 聽 Children in Toronto, Vancouver and even Yorkton and Prince Albert aren鈥檛 going to be fans of eating cute, any more than the public liked 鈥榗ute鈥� seals being harvested.
聽 聽 聽 聽 The harvest was forced to change, and fish stocks may be suffering because of that, but it was consumer influence that started that ball rolling.
聽 聽 聽 聽 聽Filling consumer鈥檚 heads with cute pictures, and then trying to sell the idea that eating meat is good, really sets up the system to fight against itself. There is a fine line these days in terms of image. Wise hunters no longer kill deer, they harvest them.
聽 聽 聽 聽 Language and image are critical, and while consumers need facts upon which they can build informed decisions, how those facts are presented matter too.
