Tweets and Facebook friends proliferate

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn— a group of modern brand names that might sound silly at first, but these “social media” Web sites are being employed by farmers to network among their peers and tell the story—individually—of American agriculture.

Now, an organization has formed to help online ag interests more efficiently find each other. It started with a weekly streaming conversation on Twitter last year. Michele Payn-Knoper, an ag advocacy speaker, dubbed the weekly conversation AgChat.

Farmers Jeff Fowle of California, Darin Grimm of Kansas, Mike Haley of Ohio and Ray Prock of California were strangers a year ago. They built friendships and began doing things that supported each other’s farming segments after meeting in the online AgChat discussion.

From relationships like that, a more formal organization called AgChat Foundation has been created.

“I’d say the effort Ray and I spearheaded to raise awareness in the economic crisis for dairy farms was where we began to realize how well we could do in telling our stories online. It’s also the first time some of us really focused toward a common goal,” Haley explained. “We think AgChat Foundation will help other farmers share their experiences as we learn from each other about how to put the true faces and stories of American agriculture.”

Prock described the evolution: “We’ve had these ideas and after tossing them around for months, all of us agreed, if farmers didn’t take ownership for moving this forward, we couldn’t really expect anyone else to. And as we worked on our ideas, a number of others have offered suggestions and a lot of their personal time to help us realize this vision.”

The foundation has four program areas focused on social media:
 

•Agvocacy 2.0 Training: Educate farmers through basic, mid-level & expert
training to move mindsets up the technology ladder.
•Strategic Agvocacy Coordination: Empower agriculture’s voice through
coordinated industry- wide efforts.
•Data Analysis: Provide tools to assist agvocates with targeted community efforts.
•Technology Scholarships: Equip farmers with infrastructure to enable full use
of social media.

Each of the founding farmers believe in these four areas and social media so deeply, they each have elaborated on them by shooting videos that can be accessed through the Foundation’s new Web site http://agchat.org, by going to http://youtube.com/agchat.

Fowle pointed out that the programs are meant to be broad. “It becomes very apparent through social media that there is a great diversity of farm stories. My family runs our ranch one way and we may have a neighbor across the valley that makes very different choices. The real value of social media comes from farmers telling their own story from their own perspective.”

Payn-Knoper said that when she started AgChat a year ago, she had no idea how quickly it would grow.

Volunteers have been part of AgChat on twitter for a long time, providing moderation of discussions, etc., and adopting more ways to reach out to both members of the ag community and the general public as well.

Even Grimm finds himself amplifying their voice online. “My friends and family would be surprised about how vocal I’ve become online cause I’m somewhat of an introvert, but I’ve seen a lot of power from farmers sharing their stories and am trying to do the same. Most of us think our story is pretty boring but you find that some of the most common things we do on the farm are some of the most interesting to people in cities and suburbs.”

According to a press release, “The AgChat Foundation seeks to involve all sectors of agriculture in this effort, encompassing diverse viewpoints such as conventional, organic, small and large operations. The group’s focus is to bring agriculture together, rather than segment and diminish our industry by focusing on size, region or production differences. The board of directors of farming represents diverse types of family farms across North America.”