Farmers: Put your name on your product
No farmer wants to leave money on the table. But if you’re not somehow putting your signature on commodities leaving your farm, you may be missing an opportunity.
Photo credit: watchusgrow.org
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Author: Owen Roberts
Soil: Out of the silo, into the spotlight
Soil, once a supporting actor in agriculture, is finally finding its way to the spotlight. It hasn’t quite made it to the red carpet yet, but integrated soil health and management are well on the way to getting top billing, even outside of agricultural circles.
Photo credit: thegrower.org
In farming and beyond, everyone wants to know you’re real
Musicians struggled in the early 1980s — but not because of sex, drugs, or rock and roll, the usual causes.
Instead, for many of them, their nemesis was video.
And it’s all because of MTV. When the music channel debuted in 1981, musicians had to become actors overnight. Video support for new releases was a key to success, and performers went from fronting a band to following a script.
Photo credit: Etsy
Senator: Don’t treat soil like dirt
Getting people to care about soil shouldn’t be hard. After all, if our soil is in trouble, then we’re all in trouble, for what should be obvious reasons.
But that hasn’t been the case, at last outside of the farming community.
Photo credit: Catherine Ulitsky, USDA/Flickr
Worker program deserves the welcome mat
I’m hoping the United Nations special rapporteur on modern slavery, who singled out Canada a few weeks ago for what he believes is a faulty temporary farm worker program, is paying attention to a new report that offers another perspective.
Photo credit: Getty Images
OWEN ROBERTS
Owen Roberts is a faculty member in the Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communications program at the University of Illinois. As an agricultural journalist, he is the past president of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists and a lifetime achievement award recipient from the Canadian Farm Writers' Federation. His programs and research papers have been recognized nationally and internationally through awards from the Journal of Applied Communications, the National Agri-Marketing Association, the Association for Communications Excellence, and others.