Farmscape for November 19, 2019

The Executive Director of Farm and Food Care Saskatchewan says, as the number of people directly involved in agriculture dwindles, those who are still farming need to talk more about what they're doing and why.
"Food Fights Aren't Fun" was discussed last week as part of Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium 2019.
Clinton Monchuk, the Executive Director of Farm and Food Care Saskatchewan, observes fewer people have ties to a farm or ranch and are seeking other sources of information and, as a result of misinformation or fear based marketing, there's a lot confusion.

Clip-Clinton Monchuk-Farm and Food Care Saskatchewan:
Typically when you look at those who are against modern farming practices, a lot of them have some special interest.
Whether it's the Environmental Working Group or PETA, you have really special interest groups that want consumers to push their consumption patterns to a different manner.
If you look at the animal rights groups, some of them, their goal when they try and bring up animal rights videos or different campaigns on-line, their focus is more on trying to get you to establish a vegan lifestyle as opposed to trying to inform consumers on what's really happening on the farm.
They're cherry picking certain situations and what happens is people get that viewpoint that a video that they've watched is typical on farms.
That changes their trust in what we're doing as farmers and ranchers.
So a lot of what we're doing is trying to make sure that consumers do have an opportunity to have an engaging conversation and do know the facts and the transparent reality of what we're doing on our farms.

Monchuk says the most trusted source of information for food and food production is still farmers but farmers aren't talking as much as they should.
He says, as the number of people coming from a farming background dwindles, farmers need to talk more about what they're doing or risk losing some of that consumer trust.
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Bruce Cochrane.

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