ARTICLE: Farmers must take their message to the public

The following is an excerpt of an editorial in the Capital Press encouraging farmers to talk about farming (including GMOs) to local community groups. 

At least a couple times a year one group or another reaches out to the Capital Press seeking advice on how to get their message about agriculture to consumers in urban markets.

The conversation takes a predictable course.

“There’s so much misinformation on the internet. People in the city don’t understand farming (ranching, GMOs, dairies, pesticides, wolves, commodity prices, trade, etc). How can we get the facts and our perspective to city media outlets?”

It’s an age-old question.

You can try to get an op-ed piece printed in the Oregonian or the Seattle Times and you might make some headway. You could go directly to the online sites spreading misinformation and challenge them.

But farmers and ranchers really can’t compete with bomb throwers on the comment sections of social media posts or of stories on news websites.

Those probably aren’t the people agriculture needs to reach anyway. Ag can’t change the minds of activists, but it can engage reasonable people who can be swayed by the facts.

The best way for ag groups to get their message to nonfarmers is to go directly to those consumers, either online or in person. And because facts only go so far, the best way to present the message is to put a human face on it.

To read the entire post, please visit the Capital Press.