Producers to Consumers

 What message can producers deliver to consumers in order to solidify mutual trust? The NWAgInformation Network is very involved with a number of agricultural groups whose goal is to promote the fact that we are producing nutritious food for this country while at the same time trying to be extremely sensitive to the environment and to the health of consumers. This is a growing concern as evidenced by recent ag meetings throughout the U.S. Here’s Gary Baise, an experienced attorney when it comes to Ag Issues: “It is first of all important recognizing how important shared values are in building trust.  We know they’re 4-5 times more important than demonstrating our competence. Historically what we’ve said is that we have the science to support our position. Consumers don’t care about that. What they want to know is that you as a cattle producer understand that consumers are interested in safe, nutritious, affordable food, produced in a way that respects the environment and provides appropriate care for the animals. Well we share those values. We want the exact same things that consumers do.”

 So producers, it makes sense for us to get together industry wide and talk about what’s important to the consumer without being defensive. We need to understand that they don’t necessarily comprehend exactly who we are as producers and what exactly we are doing. But welcome their questions and answer them openly and honestly. In this way, we’ll build trust.