Leeds: Image of Agriculture

[caption id="attachment_166" align="alignleft" width="236" caption="Chief Executive Officer, Iowa Soybean Association"][/caption]

This past year, the Iowa Soybean Association (ISA) began to form nine district advisory councils across the state; one for each of Iowa’s nine crop districts.  Made up of 9 – 12 farmers, the purpose of the councils is to provide input and feedback to ISA’s district directors and to the organization as a whole.

As you may recall, these district advisory councils are an important component of ISA’s new membership approach, which allows any and all Iowa soybean farmers to become members of the association at no additional cost.  Soybean farmers in Iowa already make a substantial investment in their industry through their soybean checkoff and thus have earned the right to be member of ISA.  To become a member, all you have to do is go to our web site (www.iasoybeans.com) and sign up.  When you do, you will see that we have added a number of valuable benefits at no cost to our producer members.  One benefit alone (subscription to Agri-Pulse) has a value of more than $400/year.  I encourage you to become a member today.

One of the areas of concern that we are hearing from our members and our district advisory councils is related to the image the public has about farmers and agriculture.  These concerns have also been raised in numerous publications and in editorials over the last several months.  Most of the negative stuff seems to be driven by concerns about the impact biofuels are having on the price of commodities and overall land use.  But we have also seen stories about “modern” agriculture versus “traditional” agriculture and whether or not modern production practices are safe and sustainable.

Often, I hear comments from farmers that “we in agriculture need to do a better job in telling our story.” I guess I don’t really disagree, but at the same time, I am not exactly sure what that means.  Do we want consumers to appreciate us more?  Do we want policy makers and regulators to understand the challenges we face so that we aren’t saddled with unnecessary roadblocks and hurdles? Do we want to educate consumers so that we increase their confidence in the safety and nutrition of the food we produce? Do we want our neighbors to understand what we do so that they don’t complain about dust, odor and slow moving vehicles?

Some of you might simply respond with, YES, we need to do all those things.  But how do we pay for such efforts?  Are producers willing to see a reduction in research funding to lower costs and increase production in order to pay for an image campaign? Are we okay with reduced efforts to build demand and increase market access?

Kirk Leeds