Farmers have a great strength and a great weakness when it comes to their public image.
“Farmers are actually very well liked, just not necessarily what they do,” said Audrey Treichel, manager of communications for the Manitoba Pork Council, during the organization’s annual meeting in Winnipeg.
Treichel’s comment brought laughter from the crowd, but it summed up a serious point that plagues most types of agriculture.
People tend to like farmers in a general way and are fond of images of farming families.
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However, many dislike the actual activities of farming, including manure-spreading, pesticide use, heavy fuel consumption and large-scale barns and land bases.
The problem is particularly intense for the hog industry in Manitoba because some environmental and political activists have accused hog farms of environmental problems and animal welfare abuses.
Activists such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have visited Winnipeg to attack the industry’s environmental record in places like North Carolina.
As well, the leader of the Humane Society of the United States has visited to attack the industry’s treatment of animals.
The situation became extreme in the late 2000s, when the provincial government first placed a ban on new hog barns in the Red River Valley and the Interlake.
It then imposed hard-to-meet phosphorus standards and extended the new hog barn ban across the entire province, which prevented hog farmers from moving to areas where phosphorus levels are not a problem.
The hog council has run public relations campaigns to try turning the tide of public sentiment, and both Treichel and council president Karl Kynoch said there are signs they are working.
Campaigns have highlighted families that operate hog farms, and one that ran during the lead-up to the most recent provincial election focused on people in the industry who specialize in environmental protection.
The council has also supported athletes and won their endorsements, as in the Pork For Peak Performance campaign.
Susan Reise, who oversees consumer campaigns, said even some of the campaigns that promote pork as healthy and nutritious food help improve the public’s perception of what hog farmers do.
