What is being said on social media? Food, Inc. discussion on #agchat

What is being said on social media in agriculture? Earlier this week (June 23) during the #agchat discussion on Twitter, a group of about 100 people contributed about 1200 posts in a discussion of the Food, Inc. movie. About 30 people provided at least 10 Twitter posts or more.

To learn more, check out the #AgChat Facebook group and to participate, #agchat occurs every Tuesday from 8pm to 10pm Eastern time.


The following are the questions and a sample of the responses and a full transcript here.

Q1: IF (& only if) you have seen Food, Inc., please share your perspective. What did you specifically see as accurate or inaccurate?

• JeffFowle: Q1 Antibiotic discussion may have accurate numbers, but was distorted. No trend of use, or breakdown of raw numbers.
• agchick: Q1 Film had excellent production quality. Effectively dodges the "whack job" label by artfully coming across as middle of the road.
• JeffFowle: Q1 Failed to offer a positive solution that would result in being able to feed the world population.

Q2: What feelings did the preview/trailer or last week's #foodinc chat give you relative to #ag & #food production? Why?

• Fastline: Q2. the fact that the movie is trying to portray that farmers have something to hide and don't want to talk... so untrue
• AgWiredLive: Q2: #foodinc showed me how irrational people who say they hate big ag are and how willing ag people are to try to communicate.
• shaunhaney: Q2 I did not like the accusation that farms are owned and told what to do by large multinationals.

Q3: For those in support #foodinc, do you believe the facts in the movie or the general premise? Please elaborate.

• LAFarmGirl: Q3, the principal that a few large corp. run big ag. is the same as in other biz, look at banking and & car industry, US has changed
• pamelasweeten: Q3 But is isn't all about large ag, there are lots of small farms still.
• meredithmo: Q3 As I said, I support it as a conversation-starter. I don't believe in taking anything you see at face-value. That said...
• meredithmo: Q3 ...there's a lot of important info. Seeing how the "sausage is made" so to speak in food processing plants, for instance.
• Jambutter: Q3: Haven't seen #FoodInc, but read Fast Food Nation & Pollan books. All were solid, investigative books that made me think...a lot!

Q4: Given movie agenda & broader dist. of its msg., what could be used to address the movie facts or misinformation.

• shadysidefarm: Q4 #agchat A simple thing is to address misconceptions as they come up, as I did on fur thread today on etsy. "Shearing doesn't hurt sheep."
• agchick: Q4 Difficult ? I think moderate audience is open 2 listening to farmer stories. Perhaps we shud focus on that group, triage the msg?
• cowartandmore: Q4 I think the correct message will come best from the farmers. Has any group taken (or willing to take) this project on?
• AgWiredLive: Q4: Who has budget similar to #foodinc for any type of public information campaign? Like alternative documentary?

Q5: #foodinc says farmers don't want to tell their story. How can you tell #ag story in 140 char. or less?

• RayLinDairy: Q5 Not sure but been trying!
• agchick: Q5 I've been using twitpic to load farm photos. Seems to go over well. Linking oppy's prob the most valuable
• RayLinDairy: Q5 w/ Twitter Search looking for certain terms to address misconceptions & using Twitter 2 push 2 blogs or links
• Fastline: Q5. We have done some profiles of farmers, looking to do more.
• whitwallace: Q5: Can't tell WHOLE story, but can definitely use140 characters to DRIVE traffic to bigger picture of ag story. Ex: #agfact Tues.