Finding ways to respond to consumers who eye modern agriculture with suspicion

Friday, May 6, 2011

Focus group research shows that consumers are deeply sceptical about today's food system. Farmers need to talk about optimum health, not optimum efficiency, says one industry advocate

by DON STONEMAN

A point of pride for the hard-working farm community is that it is one of the most trusted groups in North American society. But deeper probing of consumer focus groups in the United States in 2009 showed that the confidence reposed in it comes with a caveat.

Consumers still trust farmers but, when asked, they aren't sure that modern agriculture is farming anymore, says the head of Kansas City-based Center for Food Integrity (CFI).

"That one kind of hurt," chief executive officer Charlie Arnot told the Ontario Farm Animal Council-AGCare annual meeting in Guelph in early April. "Because they (consumers) really like farmers, but they aren't sure they like you."

Arnot's message is particularly poignant as Ontario agricultural leaders grapple with a new challenge from Humane Society International, an offshoot of the Humane Society of the United States. Consultant Paul Hodgman, former executive director of Alberta Pork, says animal activists have begun approaching Canada food industry executives this spring. They are well funded and they wear suits, he says. In some instances, Canadian agriculture has been able to get there first. He alluded to a "watershed" meeting in late March but didn't provide details.

Nobody wants another farm organization, Hodgman says, but another may be necessary.

CFI's Arnot says the challenge is considerable. Today's consumers remain fixated on 1950s' agricultural practices and are uncomfortable with the change in size, scale and the technologies now used. To consumers, "anything more than 100 acres or 100 animals is a large farm. They just can't envision what it would be like for them to be responsible for anything larger than that," Arnot says.

The result is that, as activists press their agendas, agriculture is in danger of losing its "social license," the ability to do business relatively free of legislation, regulation and protocols set down by the companies farmers supply.

The tools needed to maintain that social license have changed. "Historically we have relied on two strategies to protect our interest. We have relied on science and we attack our attackers. Those don't work any longer," Arnot says.

Increased efficiency and reduced costs don't matter to consumers. Similarly, in the United States at least, surveys show that "feeding the world" is at the bottom of current priorities, he says. "If it is about me and my family, it is significantly more important than the rest of the world." And "biosecurity" is a spooky word, he adds. "If we can replace that with herd health protection, it is a whole lot more friendly."

Farmers need to talk about optimum health, not optimum efficiency, and emphasize the benefit to the animal, not the benefit to the farmer. Not all farm practices are defendable, he says. "We have a lot of (sow) gestation stalls that aren't properly sized."

The CFI's focus group research has found that the critical groups of consumers who lead the way towards change are deeply sceptical of today's food system. They believe all of the benefits from new technology accrue to agribusiness. They get their information online, rather than from regional television news.  On the plus side, says Arnot, they are easily reached via the Internet.

The CFI supports food choice, including organic, GMO and conventional farm production. It publishes the benefits and the shortfalls of each system so that food businesses can make informed choices.

Arnot says the key to dealing with the animal rights agenda is to inform restaurant and supermarket operators that animal welfare isn't the only issue. For example, eggs produced in aviaries have more contact with manure than in a cage system. Workers must stretch, crawl and climb to get the aviary eggs. More bedding equals more manure.

Arnot says he has talked to reporters writing about "the end of cheap food."  "The media will be looking for a victim, a villain and a vindicator," Arnot says. "We don't want to be the villain." BF