Those Involved in Farming Encouraged to be Involved in Talking About Farming

Farmscape for March 26, 2018

The Special Events Manager with Farm and Food Care Ontario is encouraging those directly involved in farming to be more involved in talking about farming.
"Telling Your Story" will be among the topics of discussion as part of the 2018 London Swine Conference scheduled for tomorrow and Wednesday.
Amy Matheson, the Special Events Manager with Farm and Food Care Ontario, says there is a lot of talk about farming but it's those involved in farming who know what's going on.

Clip-Amy Matheson-Farm and Food Care Ontario:
Keeping in mind that we are only two percent, collectively we are making an effort to be able to reach out to consumers and commodity groups do it.
Obviously our role is to do that, to let the general non farming public know that we are here.
We care about the same things that they do.
It's a public trust issue but our values are essentially the same at the end of the day.
There's a lot of tough questions being asked to members of the agricultural community. whether it be a primary producer or whether it someone like me in my role.
There are hard questions being asked.
We have the answers.
The great thing about what we are able to do as an industry is that we hold the monopoly on the truth as to what's happening on farms because the producers are the ones who are doing the work 365 days a year.
So what has to happen is that producers need the tools to be able to tell their stories in an easy to understand and compelling manner and have positive meaningful conversations with their non farming peers.

Matheson notes, the percentage of the population directly involved in food production is roughly two percent, the same percentage as the diehard vegan activists but the those opposed to agriculture tend to have louder voices and then you have the celebrity culture.
She says the agriculture community can't simply ignore the noise that's affecting the right to produce food in an ethical meaningful manner.
For Farmscape.Ca, 'm Bruce Cochrane.

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