The Communication Scarcity In Agriculture

Today, the general public craves information on food and agriculture with an unprecedented passion. But the agricultural sector, unaccustomed to an interested and inquisitive society, has largely failed to respond to the public’s demands for information. Instead, corporations, time-pressed journalists, bloggers, media celebrities, film-makers, authors and concerned consumers jumped in to fill the void. Food is emotional, and these players - some well-intentioned and others not - got a lot of traction playing off consumer fears of the unknown.

This critical and timely book explains how changing demographics, cultural shifts, technological advances and agriculture’s silence all combined to create the perfect storm – a great chasm between those who know, and those who don’t know, agriculture. The ramifications of a poorly-informed consumer base are now becoming clear in our policy debates and consumer-driven business decisions. There is a lot of common ground between the agricultural sector and their consumer base, but each group largely fails to appreciate it, and the consequences of such a divide grow increasingly dire.

Drawing on a wide-range of expertise, from leading agricultural researchers to major agribusiness leaders to consumer advocates, Eise and Hodde lay out exactly why communication is so urgently critical to our modern-day agricultural system. They outline the major themes affecting agricultural communication – perception, emotion, technology, science - and what we can do now to improve the debate and safeguard our future food supply for generations to come.This book is suitable for those who study agriculture, environmental economics and mass media and communication.

Foreword: Dr. Robert Paarlberg

Foreword: Dr. Sonny Ramaswamy

Preface: Today’s Communication Environment

Introduction: The Scarcity of Communication

Part One: The Reality

Chapter One: Pink Slime: When a media frenzy strikes

Chapter Two: Chipotle Marketing: Pushing polarization to the next level

Chapter Three: All That Glitters: The power of non-expert influence

Chapter Four: Triple for a Dozen: The rise and dominance of advocacy

Chapter Five: Technical Difficulties: Grappling with the benefits and risks of GMOs

Part Two: The Nuances

Chapter Six: Emotions and Agriculture

Pop-Out: Food and Health: A Consumer’s Perspective

Chapter Seven: Communicating the Essence of Agriculture

Pop-Out: Kids, Cows and Grass: A Farmer Blogger’s Perspective

Chapter Eight: The Importance of Perception

Pop-Out: For Better Communication, A Cultural Reorientation: A Policymaker’s Perspective

Chapter Nine: Turning Up the Volume on Science

Pop-Out: The Cost of Not Spending: An Academic’s Perspective

Part Three: A Reorientation

Chapter Ten: Working With, Not Against: The power of a diversity of perspectives

Chapter Eleven: Settling into Common Ground: The future of food and agriculture

‘The Communication Scarcity in Agriculture is in many ways a remarkable book. It takes on a set of very controversial topics related to communication on food and agricultural issues and handles them with a balance and perspective that is admirable. The authors review some very emotional cases – pink slime, Chipotles, celebrity bloggers, etc., and they are able to tell the story in an objective reporting manner. They recognize that many of the communication issues in food and agriculture arise because consumers are genuinely concerned about the safety of their food supply. They note that it is indeed unfortunate that some of the key players – farmers, ag businesses, and academics – have little incentive to actively participate in the communications task at hand. They are occupied with their