Telling Ag's Stories Pt 2
With today’s Fruit Grower Report, I’m Bob Larson. One of the major challenges ag producers face is getting stories about what they really do in front of an audience that’s only connection to ag is that they eat.
Washington State Tree Fruit Association President Jon DeVaney says while it may all seem simple to us, people outside of agriculture have questions …
DeVANEY … “How am I going to get product moved from here to there? You can’t just assume that one click on the internet will do it. How are you going to get the workers that you want? Just because you’re willing to pay a good wage doesn’t mean that people want to do that work. How are you going to find those employees? These kinds of challenges are much more in the public eye now. And so, this has been a great opportunity for our industry to get better public recognition of the problems that we’re facing and the solutions that we’re trying to find.”
DeVaney says even negative stories … like the recent backlash from the governor who took exception with the Op-Ed celebrating the successful vaccination rate among ag workers … have a silver lining …
DeVANEY … “The fact that there was a response to that Op-Ed shows that, you know, it did get attention and that people are thinking about the job that we as agriculture producers and packers and processors are doing in meeting the challenge of workforce safety during a global pandemic.”
Any news, DeVaney says could be good news …
DeVANEY … “What is that old saying that the opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. If we were getting indifference to talk about our problems, that’s a bigger challenge than when people fight fiercely over how we’re responding.”
DeVaney says the industry needs to get out and tell our positive stories especially during tough times like these.
