Beef farmers have a right to feel a bit battered.
They are being slammed by attacks in the media, often the result of lazy journalism used to fill large volume website and social media post deadlines.
I see one of these pieces almost every day. It’s a popular, easy meme to propagate.
Beef farmer Ken Schaus called out Bloomberg News (usually a fairly serious purveyor of business news) on Twitter recently when it posted a short video, with no voice over and a few stats, that panned beef’s health and environmental impact.
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This sort of click-bait is challenging when it’s focused on your industry. There’s little balance and you can feel sorely put upon.
The language isn’t precise. “Beef ‘could’ affect your health. Beef ‘could’ be harmful to the environment.”
That means there’s an awful lot of fuzziness around the truth.
Unfortunately, despite a movement in some areas of social media marketing toward more quality interactions, many companies are still spewing click-bait — as much information and as tricky as you can make it sound to generate clicks.
Serious information organizations, like Bloomberg, are doing this. The Weather Network also provoked the ire of some Ontario farmers with a tweet about stopping the practice of feeding dogs meat because of the environmental implications.
Some speculate that it’s a grand conspiracy against livestock.
As someone with experience in the communications and social media business, I think that would be overly generous to those creating the content.
Many of these organizations need content and unfortunately, livestock is an easy target for people who aren’t connected to farming at all. The meat-equals-bad equation is simple and easy for most people to understand. The problem is nuance and depth are sacrificed.
Dissing meat is also harmful to health by minimizing the healthful dietary aspects of meat and dairy, not to mention it’s harmful to those who work hard making their livelihoods from raising animals.
People are confused about the message they are getting about food. I recently sat through a presentation by researchers working for Dairy Farmers of Ontario (DFO) who looked at consumer opinions about food.
Dairy farmers are getting hit almost as often as beef farmers when it comes to health and environment. Consumers are not sure who to trust. They are looking for authenticity. According to the DFO research, all of the messaging was better received when it came from a farmer. Sean Bedt, director of marketing and business development at DFO, said there’s no doubt that consumers want to hear from farmers about food. The trust level remains in farmers.
What most consumers want is relatively simple. The DFO research found they want to be able to trust that their food is safe, their food is good for them and will power their body healthily, and that the impact of eating those foods isn’t exorbitant.
Farmers are likely tired of hearing that they are the ones who have to tell their stories and many have no interest in the responsibility that entails, but they are the best ones to give consumers the information they need, whether they like it or not.
If consumers get the strong and healthy messaging that is legitimately available for meat and dairy products, hopefully, meat will someday have its day like butter, which has seen a dramatic increase in consumption during the past five years.
John Grieg is editor of Farmtario.
Kelsey Johnson’s Capital Letters column will return.
