Going Beyond the Choir: Blog Action & Food Day
“We need to quit preaching to the choir and go beyond agriculture.” This is the single most common wish I hear from ag folks in my advocacy training workshops across the States and Canada. Going beyond the agriculture choir is easy to talk about, but difficult to execute. However, this week offers several opportunities for you to extend he reach agriculture’s voice. Please help get the word out to other folks.
Blog Action Day is Sunday, October 16, focused on food. I’d encourage you to go to https://blogactionday.org, register your blog and and then write a post that offers your perspective on food. You can also tweet using #BAD11 or connect on Facebook. At a loss for what to write or stressed about time constraints? They’ll give you ideas here.
If you’re on a farm or ranch, remember your daily “mundane” chores are a novelty to 98.5% of the population. You can even grab a video camera and record what you’re doing (know that I’m smiling as I write this since so few enjoy video cameras). Write about harvest and how that makes a difference in the food system. Consider drawing parallels between technology used on the farm and world famine. Open the window into your barn by sharing how you care for animals.
Have some fun with it – this should simply be a conversation. It is not rocket science, particularly if you’re able to focus on hot buttons of those who are “beyond the choir.” Stay away from the science talk, drop the ag jargon and share why your family cares about making a difference in the food system. In other words, relate on a human level!
Blog Action Day also falls on Food Day this year, orchestrated by Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). All stripes of agriculture deserve to be represented in Food Day – and you need to understand that the food story will be told by those present in the conversation. Are you willing to add your voice? You can do so by tweeting with the #FoodDay tag, seeing and responding to their messages on YouTube, commenting on their Facebook page or referencing it in your blog posts (for Google rankings).
Keep it positive – you do not need to be defensive, though you may not agree with many of the messages coming from Food Day. Why not add diversity to the discussion – and real life examples from people who live and breathe agriculture? And if someone takes a nasty shot at you, a certain sector of ag or questions your style of farming – take the high road. Help people understand your family’s role in food, why it matters and the necessity choice for both food buyers and producers.
Going beyond the choir involves jumping out of the choir loft and finding your own groove. Are you ready to take that step? I hope so – your voice needs to be added to the mix or it’s going to be a rather lopsided ensemble. I’ll be there – and have no desire to be a solo act. Won’t you join me?
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Thanks for letting everyone know about this! It should be a great opportunity for the agricultural community to participate and contribute. And yes! I love that you emphasized that those “mundane” chores are completely interesting to the consumer population, the majority of which hasn’t stepped on a farm since a petting zoo field trip in elementary school.
I would even encourage a group of bloggers to come up with topics to cover. Each can contribute something different that covers topics in their field, such as the different types of “cows” – explain the difference between heifer, steer, etc. What do you feed a dairy cow? What do you feed beef cattle? Is what you feed different than what other farmers/ranchers feed in different parts of the country or to different breeds of cattle? Crop producers – What times of the year do you plant and harvest your different crops? What does the view look like from the cab of a combine? All of this information is valuable and can help bridge that gap between producers and consumers.