OCP Editorial
Promoting Farming’s Image

Educators refer to it as the ‘teachable moment’: when circumstances converge, often unexpectedly, in a way that leaves an audience sensitized and open to learning on a subject tied to practical concerns and issues of the day. The concept is based on the belief that, in order to teach effectively, you must be able to engage your audience in that instant when their interest is piqued and they want to learn and understand.

At all other times, your chances of effectively conveying your message or point of view are limited, as you jockey for position in the hope that yours is the message that breaks through the background noise and finds its way to your audience.
As an industry, agriculture has long recognized the need to provide information to the non-farm public. Most commodity organizations as well as the general farm organizations have some sort of public communications and outreach program. We have formed coalitions designed specifically to provide public information on identified areas of concern for the general populace, such as farm environmental and animal welfare issues.

OCPA and other farm groups have invested significant resources in these efforts, as have both federal and provincial governments, all in the attempt to explain our industry to the 98% of the population not directly involved in primary agriculture. Funding proposals for ag communications projects promise to deliver on a variety of ambitious goals: greater public understanding of the realities of food production, increased consumer confidence in the food supply, enhanced recognition of the positive contributions farmers make to the environment and to society in general, and even engagement of the public in the industry’s ongoing struggle for adequate levels of government support.

And despite all these efforts, still we lament that the non-farm public ‘just doesn’t understand what we do’. A survey recently conducted by the Ontario Farm Animal Council and reported in the farm media supports that view: according to the OFAC study, both knowledge of and interest in agriculture are low among the non-farm public, and general perceptions of the industry are increasingly negative, particularly among the young.

So if public understanding is important, and current efforts have not been sufficiently effective in creating that understanding, what do we do next? How do we break through the noise and really engage the public? Where are the ‘teachable moments’, and how do we capture them?

As this editorial is written, a primary example of just such a moment has come and gone. Comments made at a farm meeting and reported widely in the national print and broadcast media portrayed farmers as defiant renegades determined to circumvent pending nutrient management legislation in Ontario. For a government and a public sold on the Nutrient Management Act as a key element in assuring a safe water supply, such declarations erroneously translate into the belief that farmers place their own interests above public safety and the goals of clean water, safe food and a sustainable environment.

Of course that’s not true. As a group, Ontario farmers have an impressive record of environmental achievement:

• 24,500 farm families in the province have participated in the Environmental Farm Plan process
• 14,000 EFPs have been completed and peer-reviewed
• according to data provided by the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association, more than $50 million has been invested in environmental improvement in Ontario as a result of the EFP program: $14 million has been provided through Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada through incentives; the balance has been provided by farmers themselves
• agricultural pesticide use has declined more than 40% since 1983: farmers themselves drove the process that resulted in training and certification programs for all pesticide users
• many commodities have comprehensive on-farm food safety programs: many others are currently in development
• widespread adoption of environmentally friendly initiatives, such as conservation tillage and no-till, the establishment of buffer zones, etc., all stand as testament to Ontario farmers’ strong commitment to safe and sustainable food production.

As an industry, we can and should be very proud of what we’ve achieved. But the public, momentarily sensitized to agricultural issues as a result of the widely reported story, didn’t hear any of it. No one told them. The teachable moment was lost and the negative perception of farmers created by the story was left unanswered.
We can ill afford to ignore such public challenges to the industry’s integrity. The reality is that the future of agriculture is as dependent on the 98% of the population that doesn’t farm as on the 2% that does. Public opinion drives political decision-making - it has to. That’s the nature of democracy. And 98 beats 2, no matter how you shuffle the deck.