ONTARIO farmers and farm groups have been waging a remarkable public relations campaign this summer.
They are working overtime, and creatively, to get a modern agriculture message out to the consuming public.
Farm communities in other provinces might want to take note.
Most have devised some form of communications outreach over the years but surely none has been as diverse and aggressive as in Ontario in 2007.
It is a common complaint in farm circles – consumers don’t know where their food comes from, there’s a disconnect between consumers and producers, too many consumers fear modern industrialized agriculture because they remember Grandpa’s free range operation.
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This year, more than ever, Ontario’s farmers are pushing back. On one front, a coalition of commodity and general farm organizations has organized a “farmers feed cities” campaign that features a weekly bulletin encouraging the public and general media to explore the realities of modern farming.
One week, the bulletin featured farmer environmentalism. Another week, it featured harvest and the abundance of fresh, safe food that Ontario farmers were sending to the city.
On another front is a project co-ordinated by the Ontario Farm Animal Council. It has created a website at www.farmissues.com offering non-farmers a chance to explore, on-line or in person, farm practices and hear the farmers’ side of animal welfare and food safety issues.
Last week, chicken, egg, turkey and ostrich farmers, with support from their marketing boards, joined the effort by allowing consumers to go on-line for a virtual tour of farms that include hatching, feeding, environmental and bird care visuals.
Representative dairy, beef, hog, sheep, goat, deer and elk farms also are available for virtual tours.
The information is intended in part to answer questions about why biosecurity prohibits live visits to some farm sites.
The OFAC says that since the farm virtual tour website was launched last year, it has had almost 90,000 web visitors.
It also includes handy primers about issues such as BSE and avian influenza, how farmers and regulators dealt with those issues and the animal health versus food safety debate.
Ontario turkey farmer and Canadian turkey marketing agency chair Mark Davies said in a Sept. 17 statement about the virtual turkey farm tour that it is meant to show consumers that farmers have nothing to hide.
“People want to know where their food comes from, they want to know it is safe and that animals are being well-cared for,” he said. “The virtual turkey farm tour captures the care and commitment that characterizes turkey farming in Canada.”
It is a key message that farmers have been trying to get out to their buying and sometimes skeptical public.
Unfortunately, it often seems to consumers that the farmer message is: we’re the original environmentalists and animal stewards, so trust us.
Through the web and on-farm tours, Ontario’s farmers are trying to send a more direct and believable message.
Good on them.