Comment: No hiding place for farmers with social media

As an industry, farmers need to be ever vigilant and portray only the most professional side of their industry -- no excuses for second best.

By Brian Doughty

For some time I have pondered just what role the modern day communication system would, or could play in our rural industry, given we historically use the print media in its various forms in an attempt to enlighten the public about our industry.

Give that we at times run against populist ideals -- as we see with the environment, water quality, climate change, hill country soil degradation and dairy farming in general -- my question is how can we better communicate our increasing frustration of not getting our message to the community at large.

The term social media as we know is applied to networked computers that link people across digital devices, replacing public libraries, bars, schools, coffee bars and the like.

In place of old-style communication we have Facebook suggesting it will bring peace on Earth through intelligent knowledge while Twitter's founder modestly promoting his invention as a triumph of humanity.

Social media has become an important tool for both good and evil, so choosing how you use this new will likely depend on where you sit within peer groups, political leanings, environmental issues or just plain personal ideals.

It's interesting to note that a recent 30-day survey on climate change was tweeted half a million times. Compare that to singer Beyonce, for the same period, getting 3.2 million tweets.

How do we even get close to Beyonce, given that one would have thought climate issues would be in front in most civilised countries worldwide?

Now let's look at our own rural issues. National or local, whether it be animal welfare, water quality, mental wellness or climate change, how best do we inform the media-savvy public just what's going on in our neck of the woods?

I was interested to note prior to Christmas an Auckland business man, Matt Shirtcliffe, wrote an open letter to New Zealand farmers after a spate of farming suicides, supporting them in many areas. Most importantly, this letter went viral, reaching Australia, United Kingdom and the United States.

More importantly for us, as rural dwellers, is how do we communicate to the rest of New Zealand some of the good work we do as an industry.

The most important thing for me is tell just how it is -- don't fudge anything just to make a better story, tell the truth.

Social media for most people can make or break you. We've seen what happens animal welfare wise with the bobby calves incident instantly impacting on social media; cattle drinking along the lake edge instantly impacting on social media.

What this means as an industry is we need to be ever vigilant and portray only the most professional side of our industry -- no excuses for second best.

The public deserve better from us as an organisation.

Brian Doughty

*Brian Doughty is dairy section chair and a past president of Federated Farmers Whanganui