Arkansas Farm Bureau members were taught this week how to bridge generational gaps, advocate for their industry on social media and recruit young farmers.
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The Farm Bureau's 66th Officers and Leaders Conference also included workshops on how to become more engaged in combating regulations and practices harmful to farmers. The conference was Monday and Tuesday in Springdale.
"We have to be a difference-maker," said Randy Veach, Arkansas Farm Bureau president. "We're a difference-maker today, and we will continue to be a difference-maker when we engage and work together."
Veach highlighted efforts by the Farm Bureau to modify the Endangered Species Act, prevent a rule from being finalized that would allow the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate small ponds and ditches under the Clean Water Act, and ensure county governments can't halt farming of genetically modified crops.
Kevin Murphy, owner and founder of Food-Chain Communications, a marketing organization, followed Veach's remarks with a talk about why animal-welfare activists should not claim a moral high ground.
"The duel between Christianity and atheism is the most important one in the world, and the struggle between agriculture and activists from the environmental and animal-rights movement is the exact same struggle," he said. "It's just reproduced at another level."
Murphy said animal-welfare activists should yield to farmers' expertise. He said companies such as Chipotle, Chick-Fil-A and Starbucks charge higher prices by convincing customers they are more ethical.
"They're holier than all the other people in the food system," he said. "They want you to see that the coffee bean they have derived is a more ethical bean than those used in Folgers."
He called out Tyson for advertising its chicken as hormone and steroid free. He said that type of advertising makes conventional food production seem evil by comparison.
"The race is on for the moral high ground," he said. "We are standing and watching as our opponents lap us on the issue of ethics in food production."
The social media workshop detailed the Arkansas Farm Bureau's new social media campaign, AgVocate, which will reward Farm Bureau members who share news with their friends. Steve Eddington, spokesman for the Arkansas Farm Bureau, said the program would help farmers become a more trusted source of information.
When an audience member asked whether Facebook was an appropriate place to describe the negative effects of a coming regulation, Eddington said more opinions from farmers are needed online.
"Social media is not just a way to share news about agriculture, but to promote positions and to advocate," he said.
Tommy Young, a farmer and irrigation company owner from Newport who attended the conference, said when his father was farming, 100 bushels of rice per acre was fantastic. Now, Young says he needs to produce more than 200 to 250 bushels per acre or it's a crop failure.
"By the year 2050, the population of China will have doubled. India's population will have doubled, so the demand for food is dramatic now," he said. "And so for us to use the land that we have to grow these crops on, we're going to have to incorporate technology, such as [genetically modified organisms], technology to control weeds, and also produce more on an acre of land."
Business on 07/23/2014