The information superhighway has many potholes to navigate and treacherous off ramps that will result in people getting lost on their voyage to truth if they’re not careful.
Tag Archives social media
Ramp up your social media game
Glacier FarmMedia – Farmers have been told they can turn social media to their advantage for almost as long as the concept has been around. But it’s one thing to hear that and quite another to find time and do it properly. Trent and Dena Lewis own One Mile Ranch, a beef and pork direct-to-customer […] Read more
Producers advised against fighting with trolls online
This is part of a series of stories that reporter Ed White will file this summer about the different approaches that can be taken when advocating for agriculture. Fighting trolls might look cool in fantasy movies or when you’re playing Dungeons and Dragons, but it doesn’t achieve much in the real world. If you’re trying […] Read more
How to up your social media game
Producers who have found success on Instagram and X share their tips on showing the farm in the right light online
Farmers who want to take to social media should remember to just be themselves. That was one of the main takeaways from a social media panel discussion at Manitoba Ag Days held last month in Brandon. The discussion featured three Canadian farmers with some pretty serious social media game. Manitoba dairy farmer Amy Smith sees […] Read more
Ottawa-social media feud may make info harder to find
Rich and powerful men can be silly. It’s been easy to laugh at the antics of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Elon Musk as they swing handbags at each other, recently challenging each other to a mixed martial arts “cage match.” But the more significant actions of the tech giants are deadly serious for farmers […] Read more
Newspaper journalism has faced a digital tsunami
The internet and social media are cool, but the right-side/wrong-side journalism it has created are a curse
When I showed up at The Western Producer in November 1994 I was handed a Macintosh laptop and shown how the company email system worked. That was pretty cool. Instead of being shackled to a boxy desktop computer, I could take my sleek laptop wherever I was reporting from, plug into a phone line and […] Read more
Social media provides perfect showcase for farming
This is the first in a series of AgriCulture columns about farmers who use Instagram. When Toban Dyck took off for downtown Toronto in the late 2000s, he didn’t glance back at the southern Manitoba farm he was leaving behind. Now he can’t keep his eyes and cameras off of it. “When I moved away […] Read more
Lies spread faster online than the truth: study
MIT research may explain why it can be hard to change people’s minds on the safety of GM food and pesticides
As it turns out, there’s a reason why some people believe that vaccines cause autism, exposure to glyphosate causes Alzheimer’s disease and genetically modified food causes allergies. The reason is that lies spread faster than truth, especially on social media. In a paper published March 8 in the journal Science, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute […] Read more
More farms embrace social media focus
CHICAGO, Ill. — If you want to generate traffic on your social media platform, post a picture of a Jersey cow wagging its tongue, or better yet a tractor, any tractor. “People love equipment like gangbusters,” said Kassi Tom-Rowland, a partner with Tom Farms, a row crop farm in Leesburg, Indiana. Tom-Rowland was part of […] Read more
Greenhouse owner in spotlight
HIGH PRAIRIE, Alta. — Christie Pollack’s enthusiasm for her business and her community is infectious. It has “infected” three other businesses in this northwestern Alberta town to the point where they plan to launch the Discover Our Spaces website Nov. 1. It will feature products from Christie’s Gardens and Greenhouses, Magpie Bait (fashion accessories), Kitchen […] Read more
