The stage, radio and television are no longer the only places where you can be heard or seen to convey your thoughts, beliefs and gain support for your cause.
Nowadays, a small, hand-held device and a data plan are all you need to gain notoriety and increase your profile by the number of followers on your social media network.
Unfortunately, there are two sides to this coin, the beauty and the beast and I will start with that of the beast.
The Beast is the fact that in one fell swoop or post, an entire entity or person can be damaged to greater effect than ever before.
The latest scandal involving the world’s best halfback, unfortunately, showed the bottom 5% of this man’s character just as the dairy calf issue raised by SAFE targeted the bottom 5% of the bobby calf industry.
Both had a massive negative effect on the two identities that will take years to repair.
In the past both issues would have been brought to the attention of the people in charge to minimise harm and ensure a better public perception.
However, today it’s easier to broadcast it to the world, giving the broadcaster ultimate power and getting their 15 minutes of fame internationally at the expense of those who are the target of their cameras.
The issue of worldwide support for extreme views in numbers of followers on a social media page gives those extreme views licence to grow and create groups that have time to sit on their devices and do the best to change the world by the pressure they put on those going about their business and who, perhaps, are less likely to have a good data plan or the time to put out the positives to counter the negative extremist pressure applied.
Let’s take the vegan who posted a video of sheep on a stock truck crossing Cook Strait, which reduced her to a teary, emotional mess.
She broadcast that to a vegan Facebook page and gave fuel to a fire that we the rural people will never put out.
She was so misinformed and beyond common reason that it was laughable to those on our side of the fence. But on her side she gained sympathy and support for the poor animals caged on the truck.
We will never win that battle but we could use the same tools to put out the truth of our industry.
The Beauty is that the same opportunities can be used to convey positive facts on topics we are passionate about, using social media as our stage.
The issue is we all need to get behind the positive topics as aggressively as the extremist activists do and work together as an industry to negate the negative influence conveyed by those who choose to undermine the way New Zealand has developed as a worldwide leader in producing food.
Another positive is that social media is a low-cost medium to broadcast and advertise our incredible attributes right onto the computer screens of the world’s consumers. This needs to be harnessed and driven hard for maximum effect.
This is something I have taken on board recently with a Facebook community page by asking them to help me film and broadcast to their 90,000-plus followers some positive aspects of topics often seen in a negative light.
The first video topic was of a dairy farm and its calf rearing operation.
The owner was passionate about what they did and was striving for zero bobby calves next season as they had a market for bull calves.
Her passion and love for her stock came through the video and stimulated many a response in support and a few questions from urbanites wanting more information.
The next video was that of a dairy farm that has incredible management tools for measuring nutrient leaching, managing stock performance against environmental pressures and the planting of native trees to improve the environment in as many ways as possible while still making a profit.
These two short videos were filmed by farmers and a cheap camera, edited voluntarily and posted to the Facebook page.
They had a combined watch of more than 35,000 viewers.
This is something I have been passionate about doing and fronting for quite some time to help bridge the urban-rural divide and push back the negative extremist views.
I thank the NZFarming Facebook community for allowing me the chance to prove it can be done.
However, it is an industry responsibility, not just one Facebook community made up of volunteers, It’s bigger than that.
Hence my approach to this fine rural weekly newspaper that you are reading now.
I sent a concept proposal to editor Bryan Gibson explaining I could no longer talk about the divide nor listen to others talk about it without trying to take action to put your real stories and the correct information out into the misinformed social media world.
Thankfully, Farmers Weekly has agreed to set up a project with me to post videos and push back the negative effect of the anti-farming groups with correct information right onto the computer screens of those who might want to know the truth.
There will be a backlash from the activists and that, in turn, will share the information we want to post to their followers such is the double-edged sword of any comments made by either side.
There will be a web page to direct people to the videos and for industry leaders and farmers to answer questions raised by those who want to know more or even interact with more topics and support.
How does this get to the consumer and the target audience?
This is where you come in. If you make a living from the primary industry or by supporting it in any way you can help by simply sharing the posts on your social media page and any groups you belong to, which, in turn, will spread the good, correct information to those who follow your page or group’s page.
The SAFE attack last year united NZ farmers like never before, such was the damage we felt with the advertising campaign done internationally, feeling like economic treason.
If we continue to work together we might build enough support for our industry from displaying our passion for what we do to continue to stand proud as farmers, not the evil force against nature the extremists paint us to be.
The Real Rural Story flies under the radar because it’s just what we do onfarm every day and we don’t think much of it.
But we need to show the world our grassroots best practice, our love of our environment and our passion for the process that ensures a great, safe product we send to the world because unless it hits them in the face on their personal devices these days they see only the bad delivered courtesy of those who attack our industry.
I really want to get this project rolling in support of rural NZ using many of the rural social media pages out there already to stimulate topics and share the positive side of the industry to as many people as possible.
My question to you is who’s passionate enough about our industry to get behind this concept and support it?
