Why do farmers and ranchers need social media? - John Blue, shared as an introduction to why agriculture & social media is important. This presentation also shares examples of how farmers, ranchers, and ag media are using social and digital media. Contains talking point notes on each slide.

1. Truffle Media
Ned Arthur, Director of Sales and
Content Development
John Blue, Chief of
Community Creation
Hi, My name is John Blue and I work at Truffle Media
Networks, an ag media company focused on animal health
issues.

2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48H7zOQrX3U
Intro to see farming and social media

3. Why a video?
Greg Peterson wanted to
help their friends in town
understand what Greg’s
family does on the farm.
Greg and Nathan.

4. Why do farmers and
ranchers need social media?

6. Farming Mythology
Farms have a mythology: Little House on the Prairie, Charlotte’s Web,
Elsie the Cow, Chicken Little, American Gothic all have implanted in
our brain a vision of farms and farming that just is not true today.

9. Unusual events happen that make us go "Huh?"
When the H1N1 outbreak hit, the name given to it was Swine Flu and
that cause people to stop eating pork when it really was not a flu that
can be passed through meat and H1N1 involved was not the variety
related to pigs. However, the media ran with Swine Flu and it stuck.

10. Smuggling cheese.
Cheese smuggling from the US to Canada created this image of dairy
that probably confused many people.

11. PETA, HSUS, Mercy for Animals portray
any use of animals in any way is always
wrong all the time.
These organizations receive lots of money and spend tons on
advertising, media, and public relations.

12. Lean Finely Textured Beef
Pink Slime
ABC worked hard to create a story about lean finely textured beef.

13. Food safety in the news implies all food of
same type is now bad.
When there is a bad burrito, cantaloupe, or spinach, consumers react
by not buying anything fresh or ag related.

14. Consumer observations of products in the
stores not always as they seem.
People think organic is better for you so product companies will work
on creating a food label to fit. People feel better without hormones or
antibiotics in their food so product companies will create packaging to
fit.

15. Science to advance growing more foods is opposed
by people wanting to not have science based
approach to growing food.

16. Why do farmers and
ranchers need social media?

17. Everyone eats
Everyone eats

18. There are 311 million people in the USA but only ~4 million are
actually involved in growing, raising, and harvesting food.

19. Number of farms
Farmers and Ranchers across the USA: Texas has 200,000+ farms and
Alaska about 600~ farms. These are working production farms whose
goal is to make money as a business.

20. http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0823.pdf
Relative farm population segments
http://agtoday.us/us-farmer-subgroups-info-2011
The farmers and farming is very diverse; this is the population of
farmers by subgroup. There are approximately 2.1 million crop
farmers and about 61,000 hog farmers.

21. Relative farm revenue size
http://agtoday.us/us-farmer-subgroups-info-2011
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0823.pdf
And these farmers aim to make money with their operations. Crop
farming revenue for 2011 is about $142 billion dollars and sheep/
goat revenue is about $550 million dollars.

22. Can Agriculture
Media Help?

23. 78+
Ag
agencies
70+
Ag
associa/ons
160+
Ag
focused
companies
232+
Ag
focused
print
media
http://www.agrimarketing.com/
There are may players in agriculture media; From agencies that help develop marketing and advertising campaigns, trade associations, ag
product companies, and the ag media its self.

24. Print Association
Company Agency
Where are these ag media companies? They are very much focused on the core agriculture regions.

25. And farmers and ranchers are people just like us! Some of these
people are farmers that recently tweeted

26. Pictures via Twitter: Lower Dairy Farm, Tracy Zeorian, Ryan froman, Marilena Barbera,
Jennifer Dewey, Chad Ingels, Susie J Kirkham, Suderman Bros, sean harmon, McGregor
Farms, Zach Watson, Philip Brigham, John Pawsey, Brenda Kirsch, Tried&True, Bryan
Avison, James Lane
This is a personal view of those farmers and ranchers during harvest.

27. Because they have
a story to tell.
Why do farmers and
ranchers need social media?

28. Here are some examples

29. Why: milk prices in the USA were not working well for some
dairy farmers; Do consumers know this?
Action: use Twitter to trend #Moo to help draw attention to the
milk price issues.
http://gilmerdairy.blogspot.com/2009/08/dairy-awareness-moo-ving-on-up-in.html
Prices eventual did go up. Was it because of the #Moo? Probably not.
But it help dairy farmers learn how to utilize social media as a tool.

30. AgIowa
Why: to bring ag social media people together to learn and
share plus help promote agriculture to non-ag population.
Action: leverage the 140 brand and crate a physical event in a
large ag focused state (Iowa). Share info via live event, Twitter,
and web site.
http://140conf.com/agiowa

31. Why: Zweber Farms is a family farm that made the
decision to be organic. How do they tell people
about it?
Action: Create a blog, start using twitter, take pictures, utilize
Facebook, go to events to share what they are doing. Tim
Zweber tweets from the tractor and Emily writes blog posts and
connects on Facebook.
http://zweberfarms.com/
Becoming a certified organic dairy farm is hard work. It takes a
minimum of 3 years and you still have to make money during that
time. Zweber farms joined the Organic Valley Coop, raise and sell
sustainably raised chicken, pork and beef directly to customers.

32. Why: Create a profitable ag digital media company
Action: Be willing to try almost anything, technology wise and
marketing wise to build the business. Build platforms on
WordPress, Flickr, and connections within the ag industry.
http://agwired.com/
Chuck and Cindy Zimmerman used to own real radio antennas and
live on a deadline defined by networks and traditional media. Then
Web 2.0 arrived and they sold out old media and jumped on new
media. Factoid: AgWired has over 120,000 flick images from over 500
events. He aims to help his clients with visual coverage of an event
and provide the pictures for use by all through Flickr. His photo
database is a who's who of agriculture.

33. SXSW
Why: Elevate the understanding of agriculture with a tech
savvy crowd
Action: Design and submit SXSW proposal and then engage
core support crowd to provide supporting votes. Show up and
hang on!
http://schedule.sxsw.com/2011/events/event_IAP5858
How Farmers Get Serious Business Done With Mobile
http://schedule.sxsw.com/2011/events/event_IAP5986
Agvocacy 2.0: Adding a Human Voice to the Farm
Getting two ag related panels at SXSW was no simple feat. Planning,
organizing voters, and getting there took time, commitment, and
dollars. But the teams arrived and shared who they are and what they
do.

34. Why: with less than 2% of the US population actually
growing food, there is a disconnect to understanding
who does produce food.
Action: create a campaign on Twitter around #FoodThanks,
utilize a landing page to share info on how to participate,
include Twibbon on Twitter avatars, and talk with people to
encourage them to blog / thank farmers for our food.
http://foodthanks.com/

35. Why: There is a lot of information about genetically modified
organisms that the public believes yet is not true.
Action: Build a blog around science experts and interested
parties to share what happens in science and research. Create
a face with FrankNFoode on Twitter and in real life to help
educate people on the science.
http://www.biofortified.org/

36. Why: Many people are not familiar with farming and the work it
involves. Young people have energy and a belief they can
make a difference.
Action: "Together, our generation can make a difference."
through concerts, design, Social Media, Selling T-shirts at
events, talking to many people, using social media
http://www.ilovefarmers.org/about.html
This is a student run non-profit out of Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo,
CA. They organize around other events, cater to the needs of young
people (music, T-shirts, food), and bring youthful energy where ever
they go.

37. Why: To empower farmers and ranchers to connect
communities through social media platforms.
Action: setup events to bring social media training to farmers
and ranchers in large and small groups.
http://agchat.org/
AgChat got its start as an experiment on Twitter, creating a Twitter
chat around food and agriculture. It evolved into a group of farmers
and ranchers who wanted to help spread the word on how to use
social media to bring agriculture’s voice to a larger audience.

38. Telling a great story
What is happening?

39. Contact Information
info@TruffleMedia.com
@TruffleMedia
TruffleMedia.com/Facebook
(877) 558-7833
TruffleMedia.com