Education is Key; Reaction is Our Demise
In the past, I’ve talked quite a bit about the nasty comments and messages I and many other agriculturists have received from anti-ags. However, today I would like to shift gears and talk about the aggressive and completely unnecessary comments I’ve seen from agriculturists. This goes along with my W.A.R.M. acronym of what I believe you should be when engaging with anti-ags which is: well informed, approachable, respectful, and mindful. This is something I’ve wanted to talk about for a while now and to truly get the full scope of this column, we need to go back in time to Summer 2017…
When I came back from lunch after meeting Kevin in June 2017, I joined five anti-ag Facebook groups and opened up this notebook. These were my first notes in the world of defending agriculture, kind of cool, very nostalgic.
In June 2017 while interning for the Angus Journal I met a guy named Kevin Murphy. Kevin owned an agricultural marketing business at the time and had a fire lit in him about effectively communicating agriculture to the public. He had done so in writing, videos, graphics, you name it — the dude was using every resource he had to make sure the public knew the truth in food.
I met Kevin over a lunch meeting and within an hour and a half of listening to this guy talk my life and my outlook on ag communications changed completely. He encouraged me to agvocate, and to broaden my horizons by going in the trenches and seeing exactly what anti-ags were saying about the ag industry (not just seeing what our side of the argument was saying the other side said…say that five times fast).
The day after our lunch meeting, I went back to the Angus Media office and joined 5 different vegan and anti-ag Facebook groups. I decided although it would be hard to hold my tongue, for my personal research purposes, I need to be a silent observer of these groups.
Two years later, I was given the opportunity to start my column with the Western Ag Reporter and have relied on those groups — and several others — since.
Now, don’t get me wrong…I find many of the posts and comments I see absolutely appalling. People wishing ill upon ranchers; animal rights activists rejoicing when big game hunters pass away; one user back in 2019 actually claimed they hoped a dairy farmer would be “sexually assaulted” because “that’s what he does to his animals, he deserves it too.” However, although maybe not as extreme, I see aggressive comments and posts from just as many agriculturists out there.
I remember back in 2020, an anti-ag made a post where they called a heifer a bull. Instead of politely correcting her, many people mocked this individual or simply complained about their ignorance all over Twitter. And what good did that do other than get the mockers a few likes and retweets?
In 2019 when the big blow up happened with the then Miss Montana USA, someone made an Instagram account called “Miss Montana USA is a Joke” then proceeded to post cruel photos and graphics about her.
Heck, even today, if you go look at some of the bigger vegan influencers out there on TikTok or Instagram, some of the top comments are vulgar sayings from people who claim to be farmers and/or ranchers.
The point I’m trying to make here is this: just because someone spits vinegar at you, doesn’t mean you need to do it back.
If we truly want to move forward as agriculturists and create a positive public perception of our industry, we will never do so by being degrading, intimidating, cocky, or a know-it-all.
We need to be WARM: well informed, approachable, respectful, and mindful.
I mean, what does a crude, yet clever comment do for the betterment of agricultural literacy?
I can tell you it doesn’t work towards a good public opinion of ag.
It doesn’t insight a productive conversation about our food system.
And it defiantly doesn’t make us any better than the anti-ags spewing hate.
One of the best things my mom every taught me is the old saying, “you catch more flies with honey.” But are we, agriculturists, doing that?
Some of us are, but more than I’d like to admit are taking an opportunity which could be used to educate and inform and throwing it away for a “wow so-in-so really told them off!” moment.
In 2021, we have an opportunity like never before to educate the entire world about agricultural practices. And I get it, some people don’t have time to agvocate…but if you have time to called a vegan an “entitled liberal ****” then by golly, you have time to comment something productive, informative, and even inspiring.
Stop reacting and start educating — you’ll be amazed at how much more of an impact you will make.
Check this out…an agriculturist reached out to me last week to point out a post shared to Instagram by one of her friends. The post in question was about animal welfare. The agriculturist practiced the WARM method and it worked! See below…
