The Role of Social Media in Agricultural Advocacy
What do Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Pinterest, Google+, and Tumblr have in common? They're all different kinds of social media!
Seven out of ten Americans use social media. In fact, the number of people using social media has grown exponentially in the last ten years, according to the Pew Research Center, who made this nice, little graphic below.
 |
| Goodbye, MySpace, hello Facebook! |
Social media can be both a good thing and a bad thing. On one hand, people have access to a wealth of information about any topic, and news can spread lightening fast, from China, to America, to Europe in a matter of seconds. On the other, social media has no way to check what is false, and that's how we get Fake News. Here's an example:
I debunked that little gem in the most popular blog post I ever wrote, which you can find here. Long story short, unless you want to eat 27 cups of broccoli a day, you can't get as much protein from broccoli as you can from meat (my debunk used beef). I wish this meme was just something I made myself as a joke, since I consider myself an accomplished memester, but it's 100% real, and was posted on the web by a vegan bodybuilding group.
The scary thing is, there's no way to verify this information. Memes with drastic claims like this get a lot of attention because of how sensational they are, and people who don't know that they should be skeptical of something without a source cited, or don't know much about farming or nutrition, spread these memes around the internet like wildfire, using social media. This is how misinformation spreads.
On the flipside, social media can also be an incredible tool for providing information to people all over the world about how food is grown, directly from the farmer's hand. Farmers can use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter ,YouTube, and even Pinterest, to show people exactly what it is that they do, and why they do it. For example, I'm a big fan of Michelle Miller (aka "Farm Babe" on Facebook) because her platform is quite large and she uses it to spread a good word about GMOs, different systems of farming animals, and general sustainability concerns. Her platform is quite a bit larger than mine, so I appreciate all the good work she does for agriculture.
Each voice helps, however. On social media, I follow the accounts of countless farmers and ranchers, who are doing their part to spread the word about agriculture and how it's good for everyone. Unfortunately, I fear it may not be enough.
Peta has over 5 million followers on Facebook. Farm Babe has just under 67,000. What does this mean? It means crap like this takes precedence over the truth:
Literally nobody in animal agriculture calls this a "rape rack." Its proper name is a squeeze chute, and it's used for all kinds of procedures including hoof trimming, vaccinations, treating cuts and skin abnormalities, and even performing ultrasounds or clipping hair for shows. Here's a cow having her hooves trimmed in a modified squeeze chute:
In this case, chutes are improving animal welfare and helping to make the cow more comfortable. But you wouldn't know that if you followed PETA on Facebook, and that's where you got your information about agriculture. So it's our job as farmers to grow our social media presence and help make information about farming widely available to the American people. If we don't, we continue to allow misinformation to dictate what we do with our food supply. We continue to allow the public to think that we rape our cows and pump meat full of hormones. We continue to allow the lies.
Therefore, I leave you all with a call to action: Spread the word! You're always welcome to share my posts on your social media accounts, and I highly encourage you to open your own accounts, learn how to use Google Scholar, and get debunking! Social media can either help us immensely, or hurt is irreparably. The decision is up to you.
 |
| The ironic thing about this meme is that statistically, Asians are consuming more meat than ever before. Suck it, internet. |
I debunked that little gem in the most popular blog post I ever wrote, which you can find here. Long story short, unless you want to eat 27 cups of broccoli a day, you can't get as much protein from broccoli as you can from meat (my debunk used beef). I wish this meme was just something I made myself as a joke, since I consider myself an accomplished memester, but it's 100% real, and was posted on the web by a vegan bodybuilding group.
The scary thing is, there's no way to verify this information. Memes with drastic claims like this get a lot of attention because of how sensational they are, and people who don't know that they should be skeptical of something without a source cited, or don't know much about farming or nutrition, spread these memes around the internet like wildfire, using social media. This is how misinformation spreads.
On the flipside, social media can also be an incredible tool for providing information to people all over the world about how food is grown, directly from the farmer's hand. Farmers can use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter ,YouTube, and even Pinterest, to show people exactly what it is that they do, and why they do it. For example, I'm a big fan of Michelle Miller (aka "Farm Babe" on Facebook) because her platform is quite large and she uses it to spread a good word about GMOs, different systems of farming animals, and general sustainability concerns. Her platform is quite a bit larger than mine, so I appreciate all the good work she does for agriculture.
Each voice helps, however. On social media, I follow the accounts of countless farmers and ranchers, who are doing their part to spread the word about agriculture and how it's good for everyone. Unfortunately, I fear it may not be enough.
Peta has over 5 million followers on Facebook. Farm Babe has just under 67,000. What does this mean? It means crap like this takes precedence over the truth:
Literally nobody in animal agriculture calls this a "rape rack." Its proper name is a squeeze chute, and it's used for all kinds of procedures including hoof trimming, vaccinations, treating cuts and skin abnormalities, and even performing ultrasounds or clipping hair for shows. Here's a cow having her hooves trimmed in a modified squeeze chute:
In this case, chutes are improving animal welfare and helping to make the cow more comfortable. But you wouldn't know that if you followed PETA on Facebook, and that's where you got your information about agriculture. So it's our job as farmers to grow our social media presence and help make information about farming widely available to the American people. If we don't, we continue to allow misinformation to dictate what we do with our food supply. We continue to allow the public to think that we rape our cows and pump meat full of hormones. We continue to allow the lies.
Therefore, I leave you all with a call to action: Spread the word! You're always welcome to share my posts on your social media accounts, and I highly encourage you to open your own accounts, learn how to use Google Scholar, and get debunking! Social media can either help us immensely, or hurt is irreparably. The decision is up to you.
I'm a full-time college student at Texas A&M University, where I'm in the process of getting my Animal Science degree, with eventual aspirations to go to law school and work as a consulting lawyer for agriculture corporations. I grew up around animals, and currently manage an operation that breeds show-quality boer goats for 4H and FFA exhibitors. My family also raises commercial cattle in south Texas, where I also gained experience with commercial cotton farming as an intern.
Comments
Post a Comment