Published: October 15, 2015
Opinion
Tweet by armanddairy @farmanddairy
Old-school #womenofharvest15: Hand harvesting #corn in #Ohio! http://goo.gl/KEF5GZ #harvest15 | Twitter photo
Farming can be a solitary profession. Even with families and crews working together, much of modern farm work is done alone in a cab for days on end. This is why it’s not surprising to me that so many producers have taken to Twitter. Nothing breaks up a monotonous situation as well as interacting with another person, even if it is digitally.
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Agriculture companies have noticed that their customers are joining Twitter, and many of them have their employees actively looking to engage farmers there.
Connecting with a few skilled agronomists on Twitter can be a great source for your operational questions.
Large biotech companies are also trying to build awareness of their products and services through social media.
One of the more successful social media publicity campaigns I’ve recently seen is the brainchild of Tiffany Martinka from St. Benedict, Sask., who is a Dekalb territory manager with Monsanto.
Martinka was looking for ways to help the company engage with woman producers, when its marketing department suggested that it would be nice to see pictures of farm women working.
It didn’t take Martinka long to come up with the idea to start the hashtag #womenofharvest15.
“I just wanted to bring more recognition to the fact that there is more women than we realize behind the scenes operating the machinery and doing the non-traditional roles on the farm,” Martinka said.
The hashtag has taken off, and women from as far away as Australia are now posting pictures of themselves harvesting.
Women have always worked in agriculture, but now they can share their stories and pictures immediately with others around the globe.
“That’s another benefit to this woman of harvest hashtag: it’s been able to connect lots of like-minded women and show them there’s others out there like them,” Martinka said.
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