More producers are turning to the Internet and social media to share good news stories about Canadian agriculture. One of those producers is Adrienne Ivey, who runs a family cattle operation at Ituna, Saskatchewan, and shares her stories on her blog, viewfromtheranchporch.com.
“With the increase in popularity of social media, I really started to become concerned about the misinformation that’s out there online and everywhere in the world about our food,” Ivey said. “Fear sells, and people were really starting to have concerns about how their food is produced.
“People have questions and they really started to recognize that some of the things that you see online aren’t true, but it’s really difficult for them to know what they can trust,” she added. “It was a great chance for me to be able to connect with some of them and share the story of what happens on our ranch, the good parts and the not so good parts, and the truth of how the food actually gets to your plate.”
Ivey says she started her blog about five years ago and has been overwhelmed with the response.
“It’s been amazing just how interested people are,” she said. “They don’t get to live the life on the ranch like I do every day, but they really want to hear more about it.”
Along with her blog, Ivey has had a chance to share her stories to large audiences in other ways. In March, she was one of the speakers at the TEDxRPLCentralLibrary event in Regina, and her presentation is available to view online as part of a growing collection of TED Talks.
“It was a great opportunity to talk with a lot of very urban-centred people about what happens on our farm,” she said. “What I spoke about was… things about your food can sometimes sound scary if you don’t understand them. Words like hormones, antibiotics or chemicals, but the reality is, they have important scientific value on our farm, and if you have more questions, just ask the people who are producing the food, because they’re all just people… the people producing their food are moms and dads and brothers and sisters and care about they’re producing because we’re feeding it to our own children as well.
“It was great to have that captive audience and then also to be able to tap into the whole TED network and now have an online video that can be viewed and shared, and hopefully have a bit of a life of its own,” she added.
Source : Discoverestevan