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Archive for April 17, 2012

Mad Cow, Schmad Cow

April 27, 2012 / Ray Prock / 6 comments

If we in agriculture truly want to connect with others we need to start talking their language. By using terms that are non-scientific that emotionally and visually connect it is much easier to have a conversation based on common values. Sometimes the terms that connect are not the most fun to use such as “swine flu” versus its scientific name of H1N1 virus however it’s what is understood. By avoiding the use of a common term we are potentially doing more harm than good because we might appear to be hiding something or even doing more to confuse people than help them understand. Agriculture also recently tried to distance ourselves from the emotional and visual term “Pink Slime” and offered up Lean Fine Beef Trimmings (LFBT) an unemotional sterile scientific term.

The current topic of disconnect is “Mad Cow Disease” versus Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE). Mad Cow is so much easier to say and creates a visual image versus Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy or even its abbreviation BSE that sounds like a stock ticker. Personally it is hard enough for me to pronounce Encephalopathy I can only imagine what someone outside of animal science thinks when they see something like Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy. So let’s get the benefits of search engine optimization (SEO) by using the term everyone else is using and in turn when someone searches Google for things like “Mad Cow Disease” they find the explanations from farmers.

We need to use more emotion and empathy when we talk about farming practices and food, using science only when needed to provide facts.

What if we run with the more popular term and used it enough to re-own it?

Is agriculture in a race to acronym oblivion with other industries?

Do you connect better with your Doctor or other professional when they speak in terminology you can understand? Why should farmers and agriculture be different?

Market Culture, Manage With Science (justfarmers.biz)
Consumer Mistrust Easily Bred (feedstuffs.com)
My Relationship with Food: It’s emotional, and it’s complicated (scienceofmom.com)
Is ‘pink slime’ safe? (imperfectparent.com)

Just A Farmer

April 26, 2012 / Mike Haley / 7 comments

The term “just a farmer” can mean a lot of things.

For several in agriculture it’s a negative connotation as it implies that farmers are “just” and nothing more. It’s obvious to those well connected to agriculture that this is not true as even the simplest of farmers are far more than “just,” and their responsibilities reach far past farming in their day to day interactions.

While this website is run by three farmers, the term Just Farmers has nothing at all to do with agriculture, instead it is about growing and cultivation relationships. In a sense we are farming conversations that in most cases have nothing at all to do with agriculture.

Personally for me it has a completely different meaning, one that I hold dear in my memories. Two of the old time farmers I learned the most from as grew up, my grandfather Don Haley and his good friend Richard Zimmerman, both had a poem read at their funeral titled “I’m Just A Farmer, Plain and Simple” by Bobby Collier. They both lived a long life of ninety years and saw several changes in agriculture throughout their life but in all they both were farmers through and through and that is how they will always be remembered in my heart.

For years whenever I referred to myself as just a farmer I get a lot of backlash. I was told nobody is just a farmer and I should not refer to myself as such. At first I accepted this reasoning, because it is true. I am more than just a farmer as I am a husband, Christian, book-keeper, accountant, mechanic, truck driver, writer, PR-wanna-be, businessman and the list can go on and on.

Parts of all my responsibilities I really enjoy, but at times I feel overwhelmed with all the other responsibilities that need to be taken care of so our family can continue to farm. At times I get frustrated as several of my responsibilities that make me more than just a farmer takes away from my passion, caring for and raising my crops and livestock.

Perhaps, as my dad currently is, when I get closer to my retirement years and have kids that are taking over some of the extra “non-farming responsibilities” I will be able to focus on the thing I truly am passionate about, working with the land. Maybe I can be just that, just a farmer.

I will close with the poem I mentioned earlier:

I’m Just a Farmer, Plain and Simple
By Bobby Collier

I’m just a farmer,

Plain and simple.

Not of a royal birth

But rather, a worker of the earth.

I know not of riches

But rather, of patches on my britches

I know of draught and rain,

Of pleasure and pain.

I know of the good and the bad,

The happy and the sad.

I am a man of emotions.

A man who loves this land,

And the beauty of its sand.

I know of a spring’s fresh flow

And autumn’s golden glow,

Of a newborn calf’s hesitation,

And the eagle’s destination.

I know of tall pines,

And long, waiting lines.

Of the warmth of campfires,

And the agony of flat tires.

But I am a man who loves his job

And the life I live.

I am a man who works with God,

I cannot succeed without his help,

For you see,

I’m just a farmer

Plain and simple.

Why Just Farmers…? (justfarmers.biz)
Just a Farmers Daughter (justfarmers.biz)
Growing conversations: Harvesting results (acrossthebackfence.wordpress.com)

Trent’s Twitter Tale

April 24, 2012 / Trent Bown / 4 comments

Like many of you I first dipped my foot in the social media waters by joining Facebook (mostly at the prodding of my wife). She said I needed to be there, so I signed up and puttered along. I reconnected with old high school and college frien
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posted some vacation and farming pictures, and was satisfied with my online presence. Then I started hearing more and more about twitter.

On August 26th 2010 I jumped in head first to twitter and life hasn’t been the same since then. It was slow going at first. I struggled along to slowly gain followers, and slowly made my way to a hundred and then two. Then one cold snowy day in February, it happened, something set me off and lit a fire in me that is still burning today! The Dairy Foods magazine twitter page was promoting, of all things, a soy milk product. Needless to say, I was furious! I sent out a few angry and pointed tweets directed at them and got reply’s and responses from many people in the dairy industry who agreed with my point of view. A day or so later I got a response via email from the editor in chief of the dairy foods magazine apologizing for the soy promotion and promising to monitor their content more closely in the future….I was blown away! I actually made a difference, people who mattered were paying attention and responding to what this ol’ farmer had to say. I have to admit, I felt pretty good about that little bit of difference I made!

That set me down the path of wanting to make a difference. I went about proclaiming how great farmers and ranchers were, how hard we worked and how much we cared about the land and livestock we were blessed to work with. As I went about doing this I found a great group of people who agreed with everything I said and praised me for putting it out there. It felt really good!

Later on I was fortunate enough to meet a lot of these people in person. A group of them that I considered to be my mentors, whom I now call my friends, challenged what I was doing, but in a good way. Was I really “making a difference” by talking to people who always agreed with everything I said? Was I simply preaching to the choir who echoed my every thought and sentiment?

Of course the people in my own industry who shared my love and passion for the industry enjoyed seeing what I was doing! Was this a bad thing? No, but I felt like I could do more. I felt like I had developed a real knack for twitter and wanted to do more with it. From that day forward I tried to make it a point to reach out to people outside of the agriculture world. I wanted to share my world with them. To my surprise and delight they loved nearly everything I had to say too! They were excited to see the pictures I posted, and seemed to thoroughly enjoy the insight to my world. I became their link to where their food came from. Meanwhile when I was posting the same things to my friends who were a part of the Ag industry I was rarely sharing with them something they didn’t already know, or anything they hadn’t already seen. When I consciously focused my efforts on people outside of Ag I could see that they thoroughly enjoyed seeing and hearing about the things that to me, could seem quite mundane and were just part of my daily life. Even a simple picture of the inside of my milk barn drew an overwhelming positive response. I never could have imagined how much people outside of agriculture cared about where there food came from. I became their link in the food chain. This was a great feeling! Even greater than being constantly retweeted and agreed with from inside the ag industry.

Don’t get me wrong, I still highly value the connections inside the ag industry I have made. I really enjoy bouncing ideas back and forth with them, or even getting on and venting about the daily frustrations we face in our industry. However, nothing quite compares to the feeling I get when I can give a person from New York City an inside look into what I do everyday. The responses I get from them are truly priceless! I believe that we in the Ag industry take for granted how fortunate we are to be able to do what we do. Sometimes it takes an outsiders perspective to remind us of how fortunate we truly are!

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Like many of you I first dipped my foot in the social media waters by joining Facebook (mostly at the prodding of my wife). She said I needed to be there, so I signed up and puttered along. I reconnected with old high school and college friends, posted some vacation and farming pictures, and was satisfied with my online presence. Then I started hearing more and more about twitter.
On August 26th 2010 I jumped in head first to twitter and life hasn’t been the same since then. It was slow going at first. I struggled along to slowly gain followers, and slowly made my way to a hundred and then two. Then one cold snowy day in February, it happened, something set me off and lit a fire in me that is still burning today! The Dairy Foods magazine twitter page was promoting, of all things, a soy milk product. Needless to say, I was furious! I sent out a few angry and pointed tweets directed at them and got reply’s and responses from many people in the dairy industry who agreed with my point of view. A day or so later I got a response via email from the editor in chief of the dairy foods magazine apologizing for the soy promotion and promising to monitor their content more closely in the future….I was blown away! I actually made a difference, people who mattered were paying attention and responding to what this ol’ farmer had to say. I have to admit, I felt pretty good about that little bit of difference I made!
That set me down the path of wanting to make a difference. I went about proclaiming how great farmers and ranchers were, how hard we worked and how much we cared about the land and livestock we were blessed to work with. As I went about doing this I found a great group of people who agreed with everything I said and praised me for putting it out there. It felt really good!
Later on I was fortunate enough to meet a lot of these people in person. A group of them that I considered to be my mentors, whom I now call my friends, challenged what I was doing, but in a good way. Was I really “making a difference” by talking to people who always agreed with everything I said? Was I simply preaching to the choir who echoed my every thought and sentiment?
Of course the people in my own industry who shared my love and passion for the industry enjoyed seeing what I was doing! Was this a bad thing? No, but I felt like I could do more. I felt like I had developed a real knack for twitter and wanted to do more with it. From that day forward I tried to make it a point to reach out to people outside of the agriculture world. I wanted to share my world with them. To my surprise and delight they loved nearly everything I had to say too! They were excited to see the pictures I posted, and seemed to thoroughly enjoy the insight to my world. I became their link to where their food came from. Meanwhile when I was posting the same things to my friends who were a part of the Ag industry I was rarely sharing with them something they didn’t already know, or anything they hadn’t already seen. When I consciously focused my efforts on people outside of Ag I could see that they thoroughly enjoyed seeing and hearing about the things that to me, could seem quite mundane and were just part of my daily life. Even a simple picture of the inside of my milk barn drew an overwhelming positive response. I never could have imagined how much people outside of agriculture cared about where there food came from. I became their link in the food chain. This was a great feeling! Even greater than being constantly retweeted and agreed with from inside the ag industry.
Don’t get me wrong, I still highly value the connections inside the ag industry I have made. I really enjoy bouncing ideas back and forth with them, or even getting on and venting about the daily frustrations we face in our industry. However, nothing quite compares to the feeling I get when I can give a person from New York City an inside look into what I do everyday. The responses I get from them are truly priceless! I believe that we in the Ag industry take for granted how fortunate we are to be able to do what we do. Sometimes it takes an outsiders perspective to remind us of how fortunate we truly are!
Path:

In-text Links?Apply allDairy FoodsNew York Citytwitter pageFacebookdairy industryfarmingsocial mediaindustryhigh schoolsoy milk

Does Your Customer Have A Customer?

April 19, 2012 / Ray Prock / One comment

We are all familiar with terms such as Business to Business (B2B) or Business to Consumer (B2C). Here’s a thought, market to your direct customers and additionally market to your customer’s customer or in other words Business to Business’ Customer (B2B’sC). By helping your customer keep the buyers of their products and it improves your direct customer’s ability to afford your products and services. For example if an agricultural company who provides products to farmers also markets the food buyers it helps everyone in the business chain.

Does your customer have a customer?

Is your customers customer your customer too?

How can you help your customer sell their products?

It’s Not Just MY Story…

April 17, 2012 / Brent Boersma / 3 comments

Social media is a journey. Mine began in 2008 when I started using Facebook regularly. Facebook quickly became a place for me to reconnect with old classmates and colleagues. I stumbled across Twitter in an article not long after, and because I have always loved technology, I quickly dove in to see what all the buzz was about. At that time, my wife and I were working in youth ministry, and I viewed these new platforms as a way to stay at the forefront of youth culture and connect in new ways with young people.

In 2009, my wife and I moved back to California to our family’s almond farming operation. We helped launch a new online venture for the business, and we were facing ever-increasing government regulations in our state, both of which helped me see the value in reaching out to a broader audience. It was during this time that I really began wrestling with the concept of what social media & “agvocacy” was all about. I dove in to every platform I could imagine, trying to gain traction for our business by sharing photos, statistics, health benefits, etc. I remember doing everything I could to create content to share with people hoping that in some way they would catch it, and respond in a positive manner. I would get excited when there was a new platform for me to share even more.

And then something interesting happened. I got tired… VERY TIRED.

In trying to figure out what was going on, I realized three things:

1. I was using these platforms to speak at people… to tell them good things that I wanted them to hear about agriculture and how great we were.

2. The vast majority of people who were listening already shared my point of view.

3. It wasn’t working.

I realized I needed to change my way of thinking about social media. I didn’t need to be a salesman, I just needed to be myself. I started sharing the things I was learning, the things I enjoyed, the things I was passionate about, and I became re-energized. This changed everything.

The past year and half has been a wonderful time for me in social media. It’s really rather easy to be an agvocate!! One of my chief passions is running, I LOVE TO RUN! What I have found is that my passion for running has connected me to a large amount of new people in social media from all over the globe who are also runners. That connection and common passion has built a level of mutual respect that has quickly and naturally led to many more conversations about agriculture than I ever could have created under my old system. What I have learned is that when my STARTING POINT is our COMMON PASSION, then over time our other passions become conversations simply because they respect me and want to better understand who I am as a person. It is at this point that MY STORY of agriculture becomes part of THEIR STORY as well… and it’s all because of our relationship, not because I’ve shared all of the right data or talking points.

Here’s a quick example of a recent conversation I had with a woman from San Diego named Jess:

A GREAT CONVERSATION INITIATED BY JESS BASED UPON AN EXISTING CONNECTION

I am so appreciative of Jess and her willingness to share this conversation! For me, it is a great example of what can happen when we allow our common passions and interests to drive conversations rather than an agenda. Not only has Jess learned about almonds, but she also was able to meet two dairyman (Ray Prock & Trent Bown) in the process!

As you think about your social media activities, how can you begin developing your passions outside of agriculture to build bridges?