Communication is Key
Over the weekend, I got on Twitter and was blown away by the responses I saw regarding a video of someone sitting with a Holstein steer/bull (I couldn’t tell from the video) and preaching that people should “Meet your meat.” To match the original tweet, the same user tweeted, “Male dairy cows don’t produce dairy guys… They’re sent off to slaughter.”
These two tweets sparked attention from agriculturists on Twitter, which led to some civilized information distribution. However, many responses used an unwelcoming tone and were riddled with curse-words and slurs.
Below are some of the well-mannered responses to the original tweets.
Switching gears a little, I want to tie the Twitter buzz in with The Center for Food Integrity’s webinar titled, “The Protein Play: Emerging Trends and Consumer Appetites for Protein Alternatives.” You can view more on this specific webinar on page 12.
During the webinar, Ujwal Arkalgu, creator of big data ethnography and the co-founder/CEO of MotivBase, a company dedicated to predicting trends that shape consumer culture through extensive data collection, made a comment about consumer perceptions of the meat and fake meat markets.
“If consumers are worried about the quality of their meat and ingesting pesticides in the meat they buy, and they have concerns about the sourcing of the meat, they demand better labeling, they have concerns about the feed that goes to these animals, so on and so fourth — that’s pushing them to consider plant-based alternatives. Somewhere along that chain somebody’s going to come along that’s going to solve that problem for them, to alleviate that concern, create better transparency, open certain doors that currently feel closed to the consumer. And again, I’m completely talking about this through the consumers unadulterated perspective.
“Every time that happens, there is a yin and yang and the moment that one door closes, another door opens. I think if we focus on why this shift is happening, we’ll see opportunities on both sides of the aisle.
“On the side of traditional protein, I look at meat in particular, you might see improvements in labeling and tracking and so on and so forth in the use of IoT (internet of things, aka new technology). On the other side, with plant-based sources, we’re going to see the same request come out again and again. For example, if you just look the media’s attention to the ingredients that go into plant-based burgers— and I’m not going to get into any specific brands — but if you look at the media’s attention to that in the last six months, it’s slowly growing. And it’s growing because consumers are starting to ask the same questions they were asking about traditional sources of protein. Now they’re asking the same questions about the new modern sources of protein and so on.
“It’s just an indication of some major cultural shift in terms of people’s expectations around food in general.”
I’ve got news for you: If we want agriculture to thrive, we’ve got to start caring about consumer perception.
I always ask people, “What do you think for the future of ag? Do you think the activists will ever win?” I cannot count the amount of times I’ve seen someone shake their head and make a sarcastic comment about “those entitled millennials,” who are “quick to bite the hand that feeds them.”
The people who make these comments are somewhat correct. I’ll stick up a little for my generation here and say that not all millennials are against agriculture (case in point, look at one-third of our staff at the Western Ag Reporter), but many people do speak negatively about agriculture while their mouth is full.
I mentioned Ujwal Arkalgu’s quote because I want agriculturists to realize this: Society has questions about their food.
I mentioned the “male cow” Twitter incident because I want agriculturists to realize this: When we choose to ignore these questions, this kind of agricultural ignorance goes viral.
We’re on the right path. I will say one thing about us millennials, we like to communicate. Whether or not it’s always effective communication is up in the air, but we are quick to fix misinformation in exchange for a couple retweets and likes.
We need to make perceptions of agriculture a priority or fake meat alternatives could surpass the sale of real meat. We’ve got to market our products better and go out of our way to tell the truth about traditional proteins.
When an uneducated and ill-informed consumer picks up a pound of Beyond Meat at the grocery store, they see effective marketing. The Beyond Meat package is very clean and eco-friendly looking, it’s got a big sticker which boasts it’s 20 grams of protein and one claiming it is “non-GMO verified.”
What uneducated and ill-informed consumers DON’T see is the superior nutritional value of a pound of lean ground beef. The ground beef sits atop a Styrofoam container and is wrapped in plastic, there are no fancy labels or color stickers claiming this specific piece of meat’s protein content. They see plain and simple beef, which is just fine — but it’s being beat.
As agriculturists, we’ve got to work a little harder when it comes to communicating agriculture to the public. We’ve got the science to back our claims up, all we need is the correct marketing strategy.
We’ve got to quit preaching to the choir and branch out to uncharted waters. Take a page from PETA’s book and scream loud — but make PETA’s tactic better by screaming the truth.
I’ve heard it in every “inspired by Nicholas Sparks” movie, relationships cannot succeed without communication and this doesn’t just apply to romantic relationships. Just like the lonely couple in these sad chick-flicks, agriculture and the public haven’t been communicating. Instead, the public is communicating with the antagonist of the sappy flick, the anti-ag activists, and we are slowly but surely losing our beloved partnership with the public.
As a millennial, I am here to tell you, we want to know the story of agriculture. We want to watch YouTube videos about farming, we want to listen to podcasts (a form of talk-radio) about cattle markets, we want to look at graphics explaining where our food comes from… we want to communicate. If we as agriculturists start talking in a welcoming yet professional manner, people will listen — we’ve just got to make it happen.
