Opinion: Social Media And Urban Consumers Are Defining Farming
November 25, 2013 
During the 2013 Florida Ag Expo, a great grower panel kicked off the event to a packed house. The overwhelming theme of the wide-ranging discussion was growers can no longer sit on sidelines of the conversation about food.
There has been a revolution in communications in the past decade. This massive change has been largely driven by social media. Facebook and Twitter have not yet celebrated their 10th birthdays, yet have changed the world. Google, which just turned 15, put mankind’s knowledge a few key strokes away.
This trifecta of websites has upended the relationship between the supplier and the consumer. No longer are customers in the produce section of a grocery store relegated to the “take it or leave it” choices that existed before the digital information age. Right in the store, they can Google “Tasti-Lee” to learn from their smartphone why this branded tomato might be tastier. They can Facebook and Tweet friends to ask about their preferred fruit and vegetables. The relationship between the supplier and consumer has become more “bottom-up” and that is impacting your business.
During the grower panel at the Expo, I lost count of the times social media was envoked as a necessary means to engage the public and tell agriculture’s story. It is a powerful tool, and like it or not, it is driving the narrative about your profession. We live in a world where there are a whole lot more non-farmers talking about food than the people who grow it.
With the vast majority of society several generations removed from farming, there is a real threat posed by wildfire nature in which information can spread via social media and modern communications. There are myrad examples where agriculture has lost control of the message in this environment. Like Chipotle restaurant’s YouTube video “Back To The Start,” which shares its vision of a utopian world where farms are simple with chickens roaming the yard scratching away — like from around the 1930s. Modern farms, or dare I say agribusinesses, are portrayed as evil factories that squeeze food out with no compassion or thought of the animals, plants, and environment that sustain us.
According to USDA’s Ag Census, there are just more than 2 million farms in the U.S. The Chipotle video went viral and has had more than 8 million views so far. That’s four times more views than there are of you. The comments on the video appear uniformly positive. One could argue Chipotle was successful in portraying, if you are not wearing overhauls and petting a pig, then you a part of the evil monolith that is modern agriculture.
I could go on with examples of how agriculture has been on the short end of the stick when it comes to social media — think “pink slime” and the “Dirty Dozen.” But, our choice is clear, either we engage or allow the narrative to be driven by people who at no fault of their own simply do not understand agriculture.
The good news is growers are beginning to engage like Bedner’s Farm Fresh Market. Their Facebook page has nearly 13,000 likes (as of this posting). I did some rough math and figure that more than 10,000 school kids tour their farm on field trips every year, leaving with knowledge that strawberries don’t come from Publix and Walmart.
We need more of that kind of outreach. U.S. farmers are small in numbers, but have a powerfully positive message to spread. The agriculture industry can and must do more to drive the narrative in the future with the powerful social media tools at all of our disposals.
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