Month: January 2008

Breakdown in risk communicating – a confusing grab bag .  A research report and news release we added recently from the Produce Safety Project emphasized how “the nation’s food-safety system continues to be plagued by issues of capacity, competence and coordination.”  This analysis, reported from Georgetown University, focused on last summer’s Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak that caused illnesses in more than 1,400 persons across the nation.

It documented “dueling” public health messages from various agencies announcing the outbreak. Get unified risk communications plans in place before an outbreak, the report emphasized.

News release: Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak exposes food safety weaknesses

Posted at: http://www.producesafetyproject.org/admin/assets/files/0017.pdf

Report: Breakdown: lessons to be learned from the 2008 Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak

Posted at http://www.producesafetyproject.org/admin/assets/files/0015.pdf

Agricultural editor asks:  “Is it my job to reach the consumer?” Holly Martin, president of the American Agricultural Editors’ Association and editor of High Plains Journal , raised that question in a recent issue of AAEA ByLine newsletter.

“No,” she replied.  “I believe ag media should take a different tack.  My role is not to speak to consumers about the importance of agriculture.  My role is to speak to agriculture producers about the importance of consumers.

The author suggested that no one tells a story better than the person who experiences it.  “No matter how eloquent, my words retelling a farmer’s story would never carry the weight and impact of a farmer speaking directly to consumers.”

Title: What is our role?

Posted at http://www.ageditors.com

Sorting fact and opinion in GM reporting. A recent commentary added to the body of argument that the world should rely on experts with good credentials to evaluate the safety of genetically modified (GM) crops and food. Robert Wager of Vancouver Island University, Canada, argued that the media “can, of course, add words of caution from critics.  But it must be clear which opinions come from detailed knowledge and training, and which may be driven by other agendas.”

The author offered these suggestions to journalists:

• Talk to people trained in the field of agri-biotechnology “who actually know what the real issues are.”
• Consult regulators.  “Many countries have tight regulations on food production to ensure public safety.”
• “…stop presenting claims that we know nothing about the long-term hazards as being unique to GM foods.”

Title: GM reporting should rely on real expertise

Posted at http://www.scidev.net/en/editor-letters/gm-reporting-should-rely-on-real-expertise.html

Unique role of the Ag Com Documentation Center .  In matters such as communicating about biotechnology for food and agriculture, we in this Center use an “honest broker” approach. That is, we value, collect and provide information and perspectives of all kinds, and from all voices surrounding an issue.  If you conduct a Subject search in the ACDC search system, using the term “biotechnology,” you will find a surprisingly diverse mixture of documents and views. They range from books and peer-reviewed, scientific literature to editorials, commentaries and news releases from interest groups.

Why would we do so?  Because experience shows that opinions and hunches sometimes prove to be as important as science in the world of personal and social decision making.  In that spirit, this Center – as a public library resource – aims to increase understanding and improve human communicating and decision making by helping users “tune in” on all voices about this complex subject (and hundreds of others).

KFC – not just a chicken restaurant (in Asia). In a recent book, International public relations , Patricia A. Curtin and T. Kenn Gaither described how Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) has “set a record for fast food chain development in China since opening its first store in Beijing, China, in 1987.”  Colonel Sanders in China, Malaysia, India, and the rest of Asia looks the same as the Colonel in the United States, the authors explained.  However, they identified some dimensions of this campaign that embed KFC into cultures different from the one in which it originated.  We are adding this case report to the ACDC collection.

Title: International public relations

Check with us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu if you want to follow up on it for teaching or other uses.

Honoring the potato through beautiful photography. Year 2008 is the International Year of the Potato and skilled photographers have provided an inspiring global view of this valuable food through their entries in the World Photography Contest.  Winners were announced recently by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, coordinator of the year-long campaign.

Entries, which came from professional and amateur photographers in 90 countries, illustrated the many roles played by the potato in agriculture, the economy, food security, society and culture.  In the award-winning photos you will see images that feature biodiversity, cultivation, processing, trade, marketing, consumption and use of potatoes throughout the world.

View the winning photos at http://www.potato2008.org/en/photocontest/index.html

Communicator activities approaching

A new frontier in animal communications and genetics. We close this issue of ACDC News with a mischievous gremlin that sneaked into a recent issue of University of Chicago Magazine .  An alumnus reported having taken a driving safari in South Africa with friends and offspring.  One highlight: “seeing vultures and lions mating.”

In the Letters section of the following issue a sharp-eyed reader asked:  “Will the results of this union look anything like the gryphon on the Cobb Hall archway near Botany Pond?”

Best regards and good searching. Please pass along your reactions, suggestions and ideas for the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center. Feel free to invite our help as you search for information. And please suggest (or send) agricultural communications documents we might add to this unique collection. We welcome them in hard copy (sent to Ag Com Documentation Center, 510 LIAC, 1101 S. Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801) or in electronic format sent to docctr@library.uiuc.edu .

Get in touch with us when you see interesting items in the ACDC collection and can’t gain full-text access through information in the citation, or through online searching.  We will help you gain access.

2008-01-20

Giving consumers a lively look at their local food sources. Thanks to Warren Clark of CCI Marketing for calling our attention to some innovative agricultural television programming in California.  It comes from an “Eye on the Bay” series hosted by Liam Mayclem of KPIX-TV, San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose.  You can view online the lively approach he and his associates used in their October 7 program about beekeeping, family dairy farming, olive ranching and organic egg production in that region.

Posted at http://cbs5.com/video/?id=40196@kpix.dayport.com . Use the site search system, entering this title: “Farms and Ranches”

“Chicken Soup” advertisement proves a winner. An agricultural advertisement known as “Chicken Soup” was the winner during October of national honors in the Creative Excellence in Business Advertising (CEBA) awards program.  This ad, created for Pfizer Animal Health by Martin Williams Advertising, Minneapolis, Minnesota, placed first in the category of single ads of one page or less in a program with an annual budget up to $100,000. It featured the headline: “If chicken soup did the trick, we wouldn’t be talking.”

The ad, which ran in selected farm periodicals, was part of a campaign that also earned radio honors earlier this year in the National Agri-Marketing Association “Best of NAMA” recognition program.

Title: Cowboy wisdom hits the airwaves

View the ad and campaign information online at http://www.martinwilliams.com/showcase/PfizerAH/

Will ICT only widen the digital divide? “Pessimists who claim ICT [information and communication technologies] will increase still further the divergence between rich and poor countries are misinformed,” according to a representative of the United Nations Capital Development Fund.  In a 2006 analysis that we added recently to the ACDC collection Adam Rogers, head of communications and public information for UNCDF, pointed to progress being made.

He also argued that these technologies are most effectively leveraged when:

• The focus is on poverty alleviation and not on ICT itself (the task, not the tool).
• ICT components are kept simple, relevant, practical and local.
• ICT practitioners are involved in the design of ICT strategies.
• There is significant community involvement.
• New solutions are built on what is already in place.
• There is a focus on training to ensure success and sustainability.
• There is a plan to replicate and scale up the project if it is successful.

Title: ICT will ultimately bridge the digital and poverty divides

Posted at http://www.uncdf.org

Seeing genetically modified crops through different lenses .  “Developing” and “developed” countries see GM crops through importantly different lenses, according to a meta-analysis of seven databases containing 43 studies about mass media coverage, public knowledge and attitudes toward GM crops.  Researchers Eric Abbott and Lulu Rodriguez also found complex differences among “developing” countries.  They offered three recommendations for agricultural communicators who are preparing messages for audiences in any country:

1. Beware of generalizations about GM crops across countries or continents.
2. Be cautious about embracing results of hypothetical studies asking consumers whether or not they would buy GM foods (either directly, or if they were priced more cheaply, or had a specific benefit or risk).
3. Strive to help mass media balance the dialogue about GM crops.

Title: Genetically modified crops in developing countries

For full-text access, contact lead author at eabbott@iastate.edu

The Farmer Field School approach helps Danish dairy farmers. The FFS approach to agricultural improvement involves a process in which farmers share and use their own knowledge and experience to solve problems they are encountering.  It is used widely in agricultural development programs.  And recently we added to the ACDC collection a case example in Farmers Weekly (UK) about how FFS helped Danish dairy producers reduce their use of antibiotics.

“Over a period of one year, four farmer groups, each consisting of approximately six farmers, set to task.  Each month, each group met on a different farm to discuss a particular problem that had been identified by the host farmer.  Through a process of discussion and examination of farm records, aided by the presence of a facilitator, the groups were successful in reducing antibiotic usage by approximately 50%, with no discernible negative impact on health and welfare and a tangible improvement in the farm environment.”

Title: Farmer Field School approach halves antibiotic use in dairy cattle

Posted at:

www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2008/03/07/109270/farmer-field-school-approach-halves-antibiotic-use-in-dairy.html

Boosting knowledge and easing concerns about food irradiation. An Extension team in Texas used experiential learning techniques that increased knowledge levels and reduced negative perceptions among participants in a short course.  We added this report recently from a recent issue of the Journal of Extension .

Participants in the short course at Texas A&M University included food safety regulators, Extension educators, a food processor and port authority staff member.  Here are some of the experiential learning methods used:

• Presentations by experts
• Tours
• Group discussions
• Taste tests
• Radioactive exposure tests

Title: Increasing positive perceptions of food irradiation

Posted at http://www.joe.org/joe/2008august/rb3.shtml

Communicator activities approaching

Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam. That sentiment remains strong in the minds of many Americans, according to a recent national survey by the Wildlife Conservation Society.  Findings showed that:

• Less than 10 percent understood how many bison remain in the United States.
• More than 74 percent believe that bison are an extremely important living symbol of the American West.
• More than half view the bison as a symbol of America as a whole.

Posted at http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-11/wcs-nns111808.php

Best regards and good searching. Please pass along your reactions, suggestions and ideas for the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center. Feel free to invite our help as you search for information. And please suggest (or send) agricultural communications documents we might add to this unique collection. We welcome them in hard copy (sent to Ag Com Documentation Center, 510 LIAC, 1101 S. Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801) or in electronic format sent to docctr@library.uiuc.edu .

Get in touch with us when you see interesting items in the ACDC collection and can’t gain full-text access through information in the citation, or through online searching.  We will help you gain access.

2008-01-19

Helping close a black hole in communications for development. Sometimes, as we scout for information, we come across fresh insights about our mission in the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center. Here is an insight from two communications faculty members in Peru.  They were writing in the Communication for Social Change Report :

“We have found that there is an insurmountable void, a kind of black hole that the rationality of communicational diagnosis has actually prevented from closing:  the creative connection between research in the form of diagnosis and/or baselines, and the communication strategies derived from such research.”

We hope that, through this Center, we are helping strengthen connections between research and practice in the world of agriculture-related journalism and communications.

Title: Developing a unique proposal for communication for development in Latin America

Posted at http://www.communicationforsocialchange.org/mazi.php?id=6

Food safety more worrying than national security .  Results of a survey during May among 42,000 Korean adults revealed more concern about food safety than about war, nuclear risks and other national security issues.

• Worry about contaminated food and food poisoning topped the list of food safety concerns. “Public awareness of food safety has grown since the resumption of U.S. beef imports became a social issue…Given the melamine scare, however, Korean concern over food safety is expected to remain high.”
• Increasing dependence on food imports also ranked high.  Eighty-seven percent said they were worried about imported farm produce, compared with only 40 percent concerned over the safety of domestic farm produce.

Posted at http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?biid=2008101844698

How the “frankenfood” metaphor has been used on the Web. You can find an informative analysis of this metaphor in an article by Iina Hellsten in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. Hellsten followed the development of “frankenfood” over time (beginning in 1992), then mapped ways in which the term was used on various Web sites.

“The Frankenstein food metaphor is interesting because of its clear life-cycle on the Web,” the author concluded.  Also, it served different functions for different discourses:

• It was useful in evoking emotions that could be transformed into action against genetic manipulation in food production.
• For participants in the newsgroups it effectively gave a name to these concerns.
• In the newspaper, it provided a catchy and concise way of talking about the politicized issue.

Title: Focus on metaphors: the case of “Frankenfood” on the Web

Posted at http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol8/issue4/hellsten.html

Fish communicating – by glowing bright red .  Certain fish are capable of glowing red, according to research reported recently in BMC Ecology .  Nico Michiels, from the University of Tübingen, Germany, and associates identified at least 32 reef fish species that fluoresced visibly in red.

“We believe red fluorescence may be part of a private communication system in fish,” the authors speculate.

Title: Fantastic photographs of fluorescent fish

You can see a summary of the report, along with sample photos, at: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-09/bc-fpo091208.php

Much room for improvement in farm safety photography .  That’s the message from results of an analysis of safety-related photographs in three popular U.S. farm periodicals.  According to findings reported earlier this year in the Journal of Agricultural Safety and Health :

• Only 56.7 percent of the published photos illustrated best practices for safety.
• Among the photos that included children, only 18.5 percent depicted best practices.
• Photographs in advertisements illustrated best practices 56.5 percent of the time.

“Editors, photo-journalists, and advertisers should take every opportunity to promote safety in this high-risk industry through portrayal of safe work practices and safe work environments in photographs that are used in farm periodicals,” the authors concluded.

Abstract at http://www.unboundmedicine.com/medline/ebm/journal/J_Agric_Saf_Health

Check with us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu for help in gaining full-text access.

Honored rural columnist tells how she writes for metro audiences. Angela Goode of South Australia recently offered 27 years of tips and perspectives on her efforts to improve public understanding of agriculture. Based on a rural property, Angela has written a popular weekly column for The Advertiser newspaper, Adelaide. She was honored earlier this year as the inaugural Rural Icon by Rural Media South Australia.

You can read her report and some of her recent columns in a feature she provided to the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ).

Title: Reporting on agriculture in metropolitan media

Posted at http://www.ifaj.org

Communicator activities approaching

Another model headline for livestock editors .  We close this issue of ACDC News with another supposedly-actual headline that has been floating around the internet.  At least it touches on matters that livestock journalists might cover. Thanks to Burt Swanson for alerting us to it:

“Panda mating fails; veterinarian takes over”

Best regards and good searching. Please pass along your reactions, suggestions and ideas for the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center. Feel free to invite our help as you search for information. And please suggest (or send) agricultural communications documents we might add to this unique collection. We welcome them in hard copy (sent to Ag Com Documentation Center, 510 LIAC, 1101 S. Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801) or in electronic format sent to docctr@library.uiuc.edu .

Get in touch with us when you see interesting items in the ACDC collection and can’t gain full-text access through information in the citation, or through online searching.  We will help you gain access.

2008-01-18

Great laments in rural-urban relations .  That’s the title of a new analysis about why rural-urban dialogue often goes missing, or astray – and why reporters have a hard time understanding and contributing to it.  Writing for the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists, Owen Roberts (University of Guelph) and Jim Evans (University of Illinois) dug into four types of hurdles and roadblocks that reporters encounter:

• Technical and practical challenges (for example, rural-urban issues becoming more scientifically complex.)
• Values at stake (for example, bumping up against traditions, past experiences, environmental preferences and values in conflict.)
• Legal, political and regulatory challenges (for example, when no clear rules relate to an issue.)
• Hurdles in the world of independent commercial journalism (for example, news of the day overwhelming media attention to longer-term issues.)

You will find more than 35 hurdles and roadblocks identified in this second feature in the authors’ series on improving rural-urban coverage.  They welcome your help in adding to that list.

Title: Great laments in rural-urban relations

Posted at http://www.ifaj.org/news/urban_rural_relations.pdf

Author contacts:  Roberts at owen@uoguelph.ca and Evans at evansj@illinois.edu

Landmark report on agricultural knowledge, science and technology for development .  “The way the world grows its food will have to change radically to better serve the poor and hungry if the world is to cope with a growing population and climate change while avoiding social breakdown and environmental collapse.”

That overview introduced a major report, International assessment of agricultural knowledge, science and technology for development , released in April by the United Nations Environment Programme. More than 400 scientists, worldwide, prepared this massive study.  And communications was cited as a key ingredient to success.

“Investment directed toward securing the public interest in agricultural science, education and training and extension to farmers has decreased at a time when it is most needed,” the report stated.  It emphasized getting farmers (small and otherwise) engaged more actively and using their local knowledge.  You can learn more about the report at:

http://www.unep.org > Search on document title

http://www.leisa.info > Search on document title

No magic bullets for encouraging soil conservation. One might think there are certain keys to encouraging farmers to adopt practices that conserve soil.  Not so, according to findings reported in the journal, Food Policy .  Researchers Duncan Knowler and Ben Bradshaw analyzed some 130 studies conducted globally about farmers’ adoption of conservation agriculture.

“…the primary finding of the synthesis is that there are few if any universal variables that regularly explain the adoption of conservation agriculture across past analyses.”

Their best advice?  Tailor your conservation efforts to reflect the particular conditions of individual locales. That’s a call for the help of effective communicators.

Title: Adoption of conservation agriculture

“Farm groups are getting secretive,” observed John Greig, editor of Ontario Farmer (Canada), in an editorial last month.  He cited recent examples of meetings and conferences being closed to media by some commodity groups and the Ontario Federation of Agriculture.

“Agriculture decision-making in Ontario is moving underground at a rapid pace, and few people have noticed,” he said, adding that it is “a scary day for democracy when those elected by a constituency are afraid to tell those who elected them what they believe.”  He explained that when meetings are closed to the media farmers will not get the information they can use to help plan their businesses and figure out how rural society works in relation to their families and properties.

Title: Farm groups are getting secretive

Posted at: http://web.library.uiuc.edu/asp/agx/acdc/greig.pdf

Those rural community weeklies – a model for today’s “hyperlocal”media strategies . When Rob Curley helped create hyperlocal news coverage for the Washington Post he used a model based on his childhood memories of how local newspapers served his family in rural Kansas.

“The nature of local journalism has not changed significantly in many years,” Curley explained in a recent article in Nieman Reports . He suggested that some enduring guidelines cut across audiences, formats – even the use of new online media.

Posted at http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/07-4NRwinter/p53-curley.html

Welcome to a new student associate . The ACDC would like to welcome Chelsey Waltz as a new student associate to the Center. Chelsey grew up in the small farming community of LeRoy, Illnois. As a high school student, she took agriculture classes and participated in the FFA. She is now a sophomore in agricultural communications at the University of Illinois. She chose her major because reading and writing are her strong suits and she wanted to combine a communications degree with another subject she was interested in. During her time at the Center, Chelsey hopes to gain experience doing research and journalism related to agricultural communications.

Online news services.  Recent?  Wait a minute. They have been evolving for more than 160 years, according to an analysis by An Nguyen in First Monday , a peer-reviewed journal on the Internet.  This fascinating pre-Web evolution includes the telegraph, telephone, audiotext, teletext, videotext and other online venues.

Agricultural information services, internationally, have been an important part of this history.  You can identify hundreds of documents about agricultural uses of them by going to the ACDC search page and conducting “Subject” searches on those terms.

Article posted at http://firstmonday.org > Search on the title, “Interaction between technologies and society”

Communicator activities approaching

No, the lexophiles (lovers of words) aren’t finished yet .  Thanks to Donald Schwartz for restocking our collection of words at play.  Among the expressions, we look especially for those that touch on the themes of interest to ACDC – food, agriculture, communicating and decision making.  With due apologies, here we go again:

• She had a boyfriend with a wooden leg, but broke it off.
• Local Area Network in Australia: the LAN down under.
• Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.

Whew.  Have you seen other examples of “words at play” for the ACDC collection?

Best regards and good searching. Please pass along your reactions, suggestions and ideas for the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center. Feel free to invite our help as you search for information. And please suggest (or send) agricultural communications documents we might add to this unique collection. We welcome them in hard copy (sent to Ag Com Documentation Center, 510 LIAC, 1101 S. Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801) or in electronic format sent to docctr@library.uiuc.edu .

Get in touch with us when you see interesting items in the ACDC collection and can’t gain full-text access through information in the citation, or through online searching.  We will help you gain access.

[if gte mso 9]> 800×600 <?endif]

                                                                                                Issue 08-17, October 2008

Great laments in rural-urban relations.  That’s the title of a new analysis about why rural-urban dialogue often goes missing, or astray – and why reporters have a hard time understanding and contributing to it.  Writing for the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists, Owen Roberts (University of Guelph) and Jim Evans (University of Illinois) dug into four types of hurdles and roadblocks that reporters encounter:

• Technical and practical challenges (for example, rural-urban issues becoming more scientifically complex.)
• Values at stake (for example, bumping up against traditions, past experiences, environmental preferences and values in conflict.)
• Legal, political and regulatory challenges (for example, when no clear rules relate to an issue.)
• Hurdles in the world of independent commercial journalism (for example, news of the day overwhelming media attention to longer-term issues.)

You will find more than 35 hurdles and roadblocks identified in this second feature in the authors’ series on improving rural-urban coverage.  They welcome your help in adding to that list.

Title:  Great laments in rural-urban relations

Posted at http://www.ifaj.org/news/urban_rural_relations.pdf

Author contacts:  Roberts at owen@uoguelph.ca and Evans at evansj@illinois.edu

Landmark report on agricultural knowledge, science and technology for development.  “The way the world grows its food will have to change radically to better serve the poor and hungry if the world is to cope with a growing population and climate change while avoiding social breakdown and environmental collapse.”

That overview introduced a major report, International assessment of agricultural knowledge, science and technology for development, released in April by the United Nations Environment Programme. More than 400 scientists, worldwide, prepared this massive study.  And communications was cited as a key ingredient to success.

“Investment directed toward securing the public interest in agricultural science, education and training and extension to farmers has decreased at a time when it is most needed,” the report stated.  It emphasized getting farmers (small and otherwise) engaged more actively and using their local knowledge.  You can learn more about the report at:

http://www.unep.org > Search on document title

http://www.leisa.info > Search on document title

No magic bullets for encouraging soil conservation.  One might think there are certain keys to encouraging farmers to adopt practices that conserve soil.  Not so, according to findings reported in the journal, Food Policy.  Researchers Duncan Knowler and Ben Bradshaw analyzed some 130 studies conducted globally about farmers’ adoption of conservation agriculture.

“…the primary finding of the synthesis is that there are few if any universal variables that regularly explain the adoption of conservation agriculture across past analyses.”

Their best advice?  Tailor your conservation efforts to reflect the particular conditions of individual locales. That’s a call for the help of effective communicators.

Title:  Adoption of conservation agriculture  

“Farm groups are getting secretive,” observed John Greig, editor of Ontario Farmer (Canada), in an editorial last month.  He cited recent examples of meetings and conferences being closed to media by some commodity groups and the Ontario Federation of Agriculture.

“Agriculture decision-making in Ontario is moving underground at a rapid pace, and few people have noticed,” he said, adding that it is “a scary day for democracy when those elected by a constituency are afraid to tell those who elected them what they believe.”  He explained that when meetings are closed to the media farmers will not get the information they can use to help plan their businesses and figure out how rural society works in relation to their families and properties.

Title:  Farm groups are getting secretive

Posted at: http://web.library.uiuc.edu/asp/agx/acdc/greig.pdf

Those rural community weeklies – a model for today’s “hyperlocal”media strategies. When Rob Curley helped create hyperlocal news coverage for the Washington Post he used a model based on his childhood memories of how local newspapers served his family in rural Kansas. 

“The nature of local journalism has not changed significantly in many years,” Curley explained in a recent article in Nieman Reports. He suggested that some enduring guidelines cut across audiences, formats – even the use of new online media.

Posted at http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/07-4NRwinter/p53-curley.html

Welcome to a new student associate. The ACDC would like to welcome Chelsey Waltz as a new student associate to the Center. Chelsey grew up in the small farming community of LeRoy, Illnois. As a high school student, she took agriculture classes and participated in the FFA. She is now a sophomore in agricultural communications at the University of Illinois. She chose her major because reading and writing are her strong suits and she wanted to combine a communications degree with another subject she was interested in. During her time at the Center, Chelsey hopes to gain experience doing research and journalism related to agricultural communications.

Online news services.  Recent?  Wait a minute.  They have been evolving for more than 160 years, according to an analysis by An Nguyen in First Monday, a peer-reviewed journal on the Internet.  This fascinating pre-Web evolution includes the telegraph, telephone, audiotext, teletext, videotext and other online venues.

Agricultural information services, internationally, have been an important part of this history.  You can identify hundreds of documents about agricultural uses of them by going to the ACDC search page and conducting “Subject” searches on those terms.

Article posted at http://firstmonday.org > Search on the title, “Interaction between technologies and society”

Communicator activities approaching

November 12-14, 2008

“Making waves, lifting tides.”  Annual conference of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting (NAFB) in Kansas City, Missouri USA.

Information: www.nafb.com

January 20-22, 2009

Knowledge “Share Fair” to showcase examples of good knowledge sharing practices in agricultural development and food security.  Hosted by five international agencies and held at the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Rome, Italy.

Information: www.sharefair.net

No, the lexophiles (lovers of words) aren’t finished yet.  Thanks to Donald Schwartz for restocking our collection of words at play.  Among the expressions, we look especially for those that touch on the themes of interest to ACDC – food, agriculture, communicating and decision making.  With due apologies, here we go again:

• She had a boyfriend with a wooden leg, but broke it off.
• Local Area Network in Australia: the LAN down under.
• Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.

Whew.  Have you seen other examples of “words at play” for the ACDC collection?

Best regards and good searching. Please pass along your reactions, suggestions and ideas for the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center. Feel free to invite our help as you search for information. And please suggest (or send) agricultural communications documents we might add to this unique collection. We welcome them in hard copy (sent to Ag Com Documentation Center, 510 LIAC, 1101 S. Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801) or in electronic format sent to docctr@library.uiuc.edu.

Get in touch with us when you see interesting items in the ACDC collection and can’t gain full-text access through information in the citation, or through online searching.  We will help you gain access.

[if gte mso 9?> Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:”Table Normal”; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:””; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”,serif;}

Bad news about readership of food nutrition labels. A new report we have added from the Economic Research Service of the U. S. Department of Agriculture paints a discouraging picture of label-reading during the past decade. Consumers reduced their readership of most label components between 1995-96 and 2005-06.  For example:

• Readership of the ingredient list dropped 11 percent.
• Readership about calories, fat, cholesterol and sodium dropped 10 percent.
• Only the use of information about fiber and sugars did not decline.

Planners say they need to review the standardized nutrition labeling that went into effect in 1994 – and review their information campaign approach.

Full 32-page report posted at http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/err63

Adapting new information technologies to local languages .  A recent article by Don Osborn described an effort to help make information more accessible to people throughout Africa.  There are, by estimate, more than 2,000 African languages.  Discussions during 2004 led to a new Pan-African Localization (PAL) project. It began during 2005 to enhance the localization of technology in Africa, with particular emphasis on development and education.

Information technology is not the only complexity in this process, according to Osborn.  Part of the challenge is “overcoming an apparent mindset that adding a new African language capacity to computers somehow detracts from the existing one, usually English or French.”

Title: Localizing languages

Posted at http://ictupdate.cta.int/en/feature_articles/localizing_languages

How Vietnam consumers responded to early avian influenza outbreaks. In January, 2004, Vietnam became the first country to report H5N1 to the World Organization for Animal Health.  Researchers M. Figuié and T. Fournier examined the perceptions and reactions of Hanoi consumers during four outbreaks of 2004-2005.  Their findings, reported recently in Risk Analysis , revealed that consumers reacted quickly and intensely to stop eating poultry. However, they resumed again when the crisis abated.

“Perceived control of AI has been shown to determine the behavior of Vietnamese consumers with regard to poultry consumption,” the authors concluded.  They offered suggestions about implications for risk communication efforts.

Title: Avian influenza in Vietnam

Sheep may, indeed, never seem the same in the minds of those who have seen artist Jean Luc Cornec’s “telephone sheep.”  Thanks to Steve Shenton for alerting us to a creative art project that fits the interests of agricultural journalists and communicators.  The artist has created a flock of sheep made entirely of recycled telephones and curly phone cables. They have been displayed at the Federal Postal Museum and the Museum for Communications in Frankfurt Main, Germany.

Images are on various Web sites, but you can find a selection of photos of the flock at:

http://www.lifeinthefastlane.ca/3-incredible-artists-using-intriguing-techniques/art

Scroll to the third section that features these sheep.

Why extension agents hesitate to use a Web-based resource . Since 2006 county extension agents in the U. S. have had access to eXtension.  It is a repository of multimedia learning modules based on research conducted by land-grant universities.  We recently added to the ACDC collection the report of a survey by Amy Harder and James R. Lindner shedding light on barriers that may affect agents’ decisions to use this resource. Here are some of the potential barriers they see:

• Lack of time to learn about it, fit it into their job responsibilities and respond to online requests.
• Lack of incentives for using the resource and contributing to it.
• Financial concerns about buying and supporting needed technologies, promoting the resource locally and sharing revenue with multiple partnering institutions.
• Planning issues such as lack of opportunities to learn about the resource and lack of shared vision for the role of eXtension.
• Technology concerns, including loss of face-to-face contact with clientele, lack of technical support and training programs, and loss of local control of extension information.

Title: Perceived barriers to the adoption of a Web-based resource

For full-text access, contact the lead author at amharder@ufl.edu

Agricultural journalism:  Are they playing our tune again? A recent question from Masaru Yamada, agricultural journalist associate in Japan, has stirred our thinking about trends in journalism education. In the United States (and perhaps elsewhere) journalism education began with specialized journalism, such as agricultural, technical, home economics and engineering.  Then journalism education shifted to a philosophy that a good journalist can cover any subject.

Now, we see increasing need for journalists who understand the complexities of subjects they cover as well as the principles and skills of effective reporting. Why?  As various subject areas expand in size, internationalize and become more complex and fast-changing, we can expect to see more specialized journalists and communicators.  In fact, we already are seeing evidence.  Notice how many specialized journalist associations have formed around areas as diverse as health care, jazz, ethnic interests, religious interests, business, environment, snow sports, military, crime, HIV/AIDS and gender.

Your thoughts?  Examples?  Please pass them along to us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu

Communicator activities approaching

Great job of selling livestock .  We close this issue of ACDC News with a market report that agricultural columnist Lee Pitts described in a recent issue of Farm World .  It seems that an associate on his newspaper staff once transposed an auction market report in a way that resulted in the following sentence:

“We will continue to have sales semi-weakly throughout the summer.”

Best regards and good searching. Please pass along your reactions, suggestions and ideas for the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center. Feel free to invite our help as you search for information. And please suggest (or send) agricultural communications documents we might add to this unique collection. We welcome them in hard copy (sent to Ag Com Documentation Center, 510 LIAC, 1101 S. Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801) or in electronic format sent to docctr@library.uiuc.edu .

Get in touch with us when you see interesting items in the ACDC collection and can’t gain full-text access through information in the citation, or through online searching.  We will help you gain access.

2008-01-16

New campaign for local gardening (at the White House). A recent article we added to the ACDC collection from the Boston Globe described a campaign to get a kitchen garden growing on the White House lawn.  Author Ellen Goodman explained that Roger Doiron of Kitchen Gardeners International “is pushing for edible landscapes everywhere from schoolyards to governor’s mansions to empty urban plots.  But Doiron set his eyes on everybody’s house, the White House.”  His campaign urges the presidential candidates to pledge they’ll turn a piece of the 18-acre White House terrain into an edible garden.

Actually, Doiron argues, this will be a return rather than something new.

• John Adams, the first president to live in the White House, had a garden to feed his family.
• Woodrow Wilson had a Liberty Garden and sheep grazing during World War I.
• The Roosevelts had a Victory Garden during World War II.

Title: Growing at the White House

Posted at http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped

The darker side of recent developments in communications. A background paper for the World Congress on Communication for Development identified several new issues and challenges in the past decade.  They relate to global liberalization of media, rapid economic and social changes, and emergence of new information and communication technologies.  What does this mean for those living in many rural areas?  The report suggested:

• Liberalization of media “has led not only to greater media freedoms, but also to the emergence of an increasingly consumer led and urban centered communication infrastructure, which is less and less interested in the concerns of the poor.”
• A general global trend towards greater media freedom sometimes “has been confined largely to urban metropolitan middle classes rather than the population as a whole.”
• Women and other vulnerable groups – and rural populations in general – “continue to suffer marginalization in and from communication networks, and evidence of the scale of discrimination within the media itself is growing.”

Title: Communication for sustainable development

Posted at: http://www.fao.org/sd/dim_kn1/docs/kn1_060602d1_en.pdf

Impact of the farm press .  Hal Taylor, former deputy director of communications for the U. S. Department of Agriculture, recently passed along this report.

“Years ago when I ramrodded commercial interests for the USDA Centennial, the USDA historian Wayne Rasmussen told me there wouldn’t have been much interest ever in agriculture as a possible cabinet department had it not been for the pressures brought on by the agricultural press which was quite active in the Philadelphia area in the late 1700s.  Rasmussen also was quite interested in the organization then called “AAACE” and often said it was really an off-shoot of the 1790s when interests were so high in getting a cabinet office established.  Finally, as you know, Abe Lincoln got the cabinet office planned and a Secretary was named as a cabinet officer a few years later.”

We appreciate this piece of history about influences of the farm press and welcome other examples or references you may be able to provide.  Send them to us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu .

Teaching a fresh view of “outsourcing” and international cooperation. Think about this. Students in a Midwestern U. S. university class on computers and community were assigned to experience being offshore web-designers for a handloom weaver located in rural South India. Furthermore, the students had no prior knowledge about computer programming or website construction.

This innovative assignment helped students gain a fresh perspective on who is “developed” and how to communicate and operate across cultures.  Radhika Gajjala (in the U. S.) and Annapurna Mamidipudi (in India) were the collaborating teachers.  They reported on their project at a meeting of the World Forum on Information Society.

Title: Who is “developed” and who is not?

Abstract posted at http://www.irfd.org/events/wf2005/abstracts_t15.htm

How rural Americans are perceived . Rural Americans are most often perceived as extremes, according to a campaign-oriented video from the Center for Rural Strategies.  The Center, located at Whitesburg, Kentucky, is a communications organization that seeks to improve rural life by increasing public understanding about the importance and value of rural communities.

You can view the brief presentation at: www.ruralstrategies.org/campaign/images/flash.swf

The growing angst in rural-urban relations .  Agricultural journalists around the globe are facing an expanding menu of rural-urban issues to cover, according to a recent analysis. Owen Roberts, University of Guelph, and Jim Evans of the ACDC staff sketched this challenge in a recent issue of IFAJ eNews from the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists. They identified more than 100 rural-urban issues calling for coverage in categories such as these:

• Differences in what people know and believe
• Lifestyle issues
• Equity issues
• Infrastructure issues
• Natural resource issues
• Policy issues
• Property rights and wealth distribution issues

Title: The growing angst in rural-urban relations

You can review the feature online at http://www.ifaj.org/news/IFAJWebFeatureAngst05%2008_or.pdf

Communicator activities approaching

More groaners from the lexophiles (lovers of words). We close this issue of ACDC News with yet another set of head-shaking insights that touch on food, agriculture and communications. Are you ready?

• Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.
• A backward poet writes inverse.
• To write with a broken pencil is pointless.
• When fish are in schools, they sometimes take debate.

Can you add to this sad collection?  Send them to us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu .

Best regards and good searching. Please pass along your reactions, suggestions and ideas for the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center. Feel free to invite our help as you search for information. And please suggest (or send) agricultural communications documents we might add to this unique collection. We welcome them in hard copy (sent to Ag Com Documentation Center, 510 LIAC, 1101 S. Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801) or in electronic format sent to docctr@library.uiuc.edu .

Get in touch with us when you see interesting items in the ACDC collection and can’t gain full-text access through information in the citation, or through online searching.  We will help you gain access.

2008-01-15

Meteorologists need communicator help? “There are good theoretical arguments for expecting seasonal forecasts to be valuable for agriculture,” say the authors of a new article in the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology .  They explain, however, why such forecasts are still the subject of considerable controversy.  Authors recommend ways to improve the reliability of forecasts, including more use of qualitative social science methods “for understanding the determinants of information use and value.”

In so doing, they open the door for communications researchers and professionals to collaborate with climatologists in adding economic value to forecasting efforts.

Title: Economic value of seasonal climate forecasts for agriculture

If you lack access to this journal, contact author:  Francisco J. Meza at fmeza@puc.cl

Looking at food safety through YouTube. A review of 76 videos posted on YouTube during a four-week period of 2007 revealed that the information presented about food safety was only moderately credible.  Researchers Emily Rhoades and Jason Ellis suggested that agricultural communicators place attention on two key areas as they consider providing food safety information through new media channels such as video social network Web sites:

• Increase evidence of content credibility by using information from third-party informants such as interviewees, or by citing non-biased sources.
• Include a dimension of entertainment in videos to develop and maintain viewer interest, as well as perpetuate video popularity and sharing.

Title: Food tube: online coverage of food safety

For full-text access, contact the lead author at rhoades.100@osu.edu

“World’s longest running rural radio program breaks new ground.” That’s the title of an article in a recent issue of IFAJ e-News , published by the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists.

“The Country Hour,” a long-running rural radio program recognized by the Guinness Book of Records, “is breaking new ground by leveraging the latest technology to stay relevant to its audiences across Australia after more than 60 years.  National rural editor Leigh Radford explains how websites, 3G telephone links, geo-tag phones, blogs and podcasts enable a network of 75 specialist rural reporters to share their distinctly Australian stories on the air, on television and on-line with audiences around the world.”

Title: Longest running rural radio program

Posted at http://www.ifaj.org > May-June 2008 issue

How Europeans view farmers, farming and agriculture .  We have added to the ACDC collection a summary of findings from a late 2006 survey by the European Commission among 24,732 citizens in the 25 member states, Bulgaria and Romania.  It reveals views about topics such as:

• Importance of European agriculture and the rural areas
• Knowledge, awareness and information about agriculture and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)
• Role of farmers in society
• Trust in sources of information on farming and EU agricultural policy
• Topics on which the public would like more information

Title: Europeans, agriculture and the Common Agricultural Policy

Posted at http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_276_en.pdf

Increasingly, local knowledge is being valued.  Then again… We recently added to the ACDC collection “An overview of indigenous knowledge (IK) and how it relates to modern science.” It came from the Science and Development Network, London, England.

This four-page report described how awareness of the value of indigenous knowledge (especially in sustainable development and poverty alleviation) is “growing at a time when such knowledge is being threatened as never before.”  Among the important questions involved:

• Who owns IK and who may use it?
• Who decides how to use IK and for what purpose?
• How should its owners be compensated?

These questions about local and traditional knowledge cut across all societies. And they challenge agricultural development as well as other dimensions of development.

Title: An overview of indigenous knowledge

Posted at http://www.scidev.net/en/editorials/opening-minds-to-indigenous-knowledge.html

IFAJ reminder to agricultural journalists .  Planners of the 2008 Congress of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) are inviting agricultural journalists all over the world to provide information for a special session.  Uschi Raser explains that the session will focus on the topic:  “To whom are agricultural journalists responsible?

Program planners have arranged to carry out an online survey.  Results will be presented at the Congress by Joschi Schillhab from the Opinion Research Center, Oekonsult. If you are an agricultural journalist you are invited to take part in the survey.  Go to: www.oekonsult.at/ifaj2008

The Congress will take place in Austria and Slovenia during September 10-14. You can learn more about it at www.ifaj2008.com .

Communicator activities approaching

Farm equipment never sounded so good. If you aren’t acquainted with the video, “University of Iowa Farm Machine Music,” you might want to check it out – even if it is a prank of sorts. A widely circulated e-mail message described it as a collaborative effort between a music conservatory and school of engineering at the University of Iowa. Nearly all of the components came from farm equipment, said the message, and a team invested 13,029 hours in set-up, calibration and tuning before the filming.

Actually, this 3:24 video, “Pipe Dream,” is the creation of a company in Texas with no farm equipment involved. According to information on the web site the graphics and music are entirely digitally synthesized.  “Virtual instruments are invented by building computer graphics models of objectives that would appear to create the sound of the corresponding music synthesizer track.”

View the video at: www.youtube.com > Search on “Amazing Music Machine.”

Review a report about the prank at: www.hoax-slayer.com/issue-68.shtml#5

Best regards and good searching. Please pass along your reactions, suggestions and ideas for the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center. Feel free to invite our help as you search for information. And please suggest (or send) agricultural communications documents we might add to this unique collection. We welcome them in hard copy (sent to Ag Com Documentation Center, 510 LIAC, 1101 S. Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801) or in electronic format sent to docctr@library.uiuc.edu .

Get in touch with us when you see interesting items in the ACDC collection and can’t gain full-text access through information in the citation, or through online searching.  We will help you gain access.

2008-01-14

Issue 08-13

The price of privatized extension services. Privatization of extension services since the 1990s is having important “privatizing” effects, beyond the question of who pays. Evidence emerged in a conference paper we added recently. Pierre Labarthe and Ismaïl M. Moumouni found some shared North/South themes when they analyzed effects of privatization of extension services in the Netherlands and Benin.

• In the Netherlands:  (a) Numbers of farmer groups decreased sharply, reducing the sharing of information among farmers. (b)  Linkages weakened between extension services and other organizations involved in agricultural knowledge systems and innovation. (c) In many cases, commercial extension companies invested neither time nor money in agronomic experiments to evaluate and improve local techniques and systems.
• In Benin: (a) The number of farmers disconnected from the extension service increased considerably. (b) Many farmer contact groups disappeared, weakening connections for sharing information. (c) Increased conflict among farmer organizations “strongly damaged the collective generation, the sharing and circulation of agricultural information and knowledge.”

Posted at http://www.aiaee.org/2008/papers.htm > Scroll to this research report.

Surprising results about attitudes toward climate change. The February issue of Risk Analysis included some unexpected results of research among a representative sample of Americans. Among the findings:

• Respondents who were better informed about global warming felt less personally responsible for it – and less concerned about it.
• Respondents with high confidence in scientists felt less responsible for global warming – and less concerned about it.
• Trust in the media was unrelated to the sense of concern and responsibility for global warming.

Title: Personal efficacy, the information environment, and attitudes toward global warming and climate change

IFAJ invites views of agricultural journalists .  Planners of the 2008 Congress of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) are asking agricultural journalists all over the world to provide information for a special session.  Uschi Raser explains that the session will focus on this topic:

“To whom are agricultural journalists responsible?

Program planners have arranged to carry out an online survey.  Results will be presented at the Congress by Joschi Schillhab from the Opinion Research Center, Oekonsult. If you are an agricultural journalist you are invited to take part in the survey.  Go to: www.oekonsult.at/ifaj2008

The Congress will take place in Austria and Slovenia during September 10-14. You can learn more about it at www.ifaj2008.com .

What journalists in Mali consider most important about their work. We recently added to the ACDC collection a conference paper about a project in which agricultural communications faculty members helped strengthen the professional development of media specialists in the Republic of Mali, West Africa.

Feedback from 16 journalists revealed that they considered these aspects of their jobs most important:

• Chance to influence public affairs
• Chance to develop a specialty
• Amount of “creative freedom” they have in reporting
• Chance to help people

These aspects were considered more important than others such as job security, promotion, salary and benefits.  The report also identified journalists’ views about the importance of various functions of the news media, ethical issues journalists face and the role of free speech in a democracy.

Title: Developing press system

Posted at http://www.aiaee.org/2008/papers.htm

New guidelines to help clear confusion about food terms .

“Fresh.” “Pure.” “Natural.” “Handmade.” “Quality.” “Selected.” “Premium.” The Food Standards Agency, an independent government department of the United Kingdom, has revised its guidance on the use of these and other marketing terms. Guidelines also involve business names, trademarks, photographs and illustrative representations on labels and in advertisements, leaflets and on web sites.

In addition, you will find (in Part 2, “General best practice advice”) four overarching principles for food marketers to consider and apply.

A news release about the revised guidelines is posted at www.food.gov.uk/news/newsarchive/2008/jul/marketing

Details are available at:

www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/markcritguidance.pdf

www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/consultationresponse/mtermsresponses.pdf

Communicator activities approaching

Describing what those tools really do. We might close by passing along a set of “Tool Descriptions” that John Otte of Farm Progress Companies called to our attention recently.  Here are a few samples:

• Pliers:  Used to round off bolt heads.  Sometimes used in the creation of blood blisters.
• Table Saw:  A large stationary power tool commonly used to launch wood projectiles for testing wall integrity.
• Skil Saw:  A portable cutting tool used to make studs too short.
• Tweezers:  A tool for removing wood splinters and wire wheel wires.
• Belt Sander: An electric sanding tool commonly used to convert minor touch-up jobs into major refinishing jobs.
• Two-Ton Engine Hoist:  A tool for testing the maximum tensile strength of everything you forgot to disconnect.

For reasons perhaps obvious we will not be entering this document into the ACDC collection. However, check with us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu if you want to see the full set of descriptions.

Best regards and good searching. Please pass along your reactions, suggestions and ideas for the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center. Feel free to invite our help as you search for information. And please suggest (or send) agricultural communications documents we might add to this unique collection. We welcome them in hard copy (sent to Ag Com Documentation Center, 510 LIAC, 1101 S. Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801) or in electronic format sent to docctr@library.uiuc.edu .

Get in touch with us when you see interesting items in the ACDC collection and can’t gain full-text access through information in the citation, or through online searching.  We will help you gain access.

2008-01-13

New evidence of need for food manufacturers to protect their brands. A report from Food Product Design summarizes survey findings by Deloitte, New York, that food safety fears have escalated of late.  Here are signs of need identified through this nationally representative survey during April among U. S. consumers:

• 57% said they have stopped eating a particular food, temporarily or permanently, as a result of a recent recall.
• 75% are more concerned about the foods they eat than they were five years ago.
• 78% are most concerned by beef recalls; 67% by chicken recalls; 53% by fresh fruit and vegetable recalls; and 58% by dairy recalls.
• 89% would like to see food stores sell more fruits and vegetables that come from local farms.

“Food manufacturers may consider taking a total approach to ensure the safety of their brands, all the way from the farm, to the supply chain, the store shelves, and even the consumer’s pantry,” observed Deloitte executive Pat Conroy.

Title: Survey illustrates consumer food-safety fears

Posted at www.foodproductdesign.com/hotnews/survey-illustrates-consumer-food-safety-fears.html#

Food – not like cell phones in the minds of consumers. The new European Union member states or transition economies need structured dialogue between science and society, according to a 2008 journal article added to the ACDC collection.  Writing in Trends in Food Science and Technology , D. Bánáti emphasized how consumers require much more information, precaution and patience about their daily foodstuffs and health than about new technologies such as cell phones.  The article includes guidelines for improving risk communications in European settings and advises helping agricultural ethics “find its proper place in the system of modern ethics.”

Title: Fear of food in Europe?

Check with us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu about full-text access.

TV chefs boosting interest in free-range poultry production. A recent article we have added from Scotland on Sunday reports that demand has doubled for birds reared in less intensive conditions.  The British Poultry Council (BPC), which represents producers, says a television series by chefs Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall helped spark that demand. Earlier this year the chefs aired a television series “which highlighted appalling conditions in giant broiler chicken production farms in England.”

Some of Scotland’s leading producers are meeting this demand by turning to more natural, free-range production.  “Producers are reacting to that [demand] and that is good news for consumers,” said BPC Executive Officer Jeremy Blackburn.

Title: TV chefs spark boom

Posted at http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/

Farm readers (and advertisers) tuning into online video . “Online video a win-win” is the title of a recent article in AgriMarketing magazine. Author Ryan Hunt of Meredith Corporation observed that “broadband video streams are no longer nifty extras or at work time-wasters.  Video is quickly becoming a useful, valuable standard of Web content.”

According to the article, a recent survey found that 95% of Agriculture Online’s user panel members have watched an online video.  And thousands of visits have been posted since November when Agriculture Online introduced AGOL-TV, which houses every video that has been featured.  The article reports that advertisers as well as farmers are connecting with this new venue.

Title: Online video a win-win

Posted at http://www.agrimarketingdigital.com/?iid=7453&startpage=32&crd=229,4136,2036,329,00FF00zz

Signs of trouble in use of the Farmer Field School approach. Mark Schut and Stephen Sherwood of the Wageningen University and Research Centre, Netherlands, found erosion of the Farmer Field School concept in three Ecuador case studies.  The FFS approach to providing information for farmers is known for being farmer-centered, problem-based and oriented to self-discovery.

“Despite much enthusiasm over early results, eight years later we observed that professionals and their institutions apply the FFS approach in diverse and contradictory ways,” the authors reported in a recent journal article. Findings revealed a shift to more conventional, technology-centered designs.

Title: FFSs in translation: scaling up in name, but not in meaning

Posted at www.leisa.info > Search > Title

Communicator activities approaching

Budding novelists with rural interests show their stuff. It’s time again to recognize exceptional rural writing talent identified in the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.  In constant search of such talent, we monitor this international literary parody contest that challenges entrants to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels. Here are a couple honored examples from the 2007 contest. It is sponsored by the Department of English and Comparative Literature at San Jose State University:

Winning entry – Western Literature (from Glenn Lawrie, Chungnam, South Korea)

• “The easy and comforting roll of the saddle was second nature to Luke, and as he gazed off into the distant setting sun, he wondered whether he had enough change for one more ride at the supermarket before he had to return home.”

Runner-up – Children’s Literature (Julie Jensen, Lodi, California)

• “Mary had a little lamb; its fleece was Polartec 200 (thanks to gene splicing, a diet of force-fed petrochemical supplements, and regular dips in an advanced surface fusion polymer), which had the fortunate side effect of rendering it inedible, unlike that other Mary’s organic lamb which misbehaved at school and wound up in a lovely Moroccan stew with dried apricots and couscous.”

You can see other inspiring 2007 entries at http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2007.htm .

Best regards and good searching. Please pass along your reactions, suggestions and ideas for the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center. Feel free to invite our help as you search for information. And please suggest (or send) agricultural communications documents we might add to this unique collection. We welcome them in hard copy (sent to Ag Com Documentation Center, 510 LIAC, 1101 S. Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801) or in electronic format sent to docctr@library.uiuc.edu .

Get in touch with us when you see interesting items in the ACDC collection and can’t gain full-text access through information in the citation, or through online searching.  We will help you gain access.

2008-01-12

Six new agricultural communications research reports . Here are reports presented early this month at a session of the Research Special Interest Group of the Association for Communication Excellence (ACE) in Traverse City, Michigan:

• Eric A. Abbott and Lulu Rodriguez, “Genetically modified crops in developing countries: a meta-analysis of mass media coverage, public knowledge and attitudes.” Abstract . Contact: eabbott@iastate.edu
• Katie Chodil and Courtney Meyers, “Conversations with gatekeepers: an exploratory study of agricultural publication editors’ decisions to publish risk coverage.” Abstract. Contact: kchodil@ufl.edu
• Katie Chodil, Courtney Meyers, Tracy Irani and Lauri Baker, “Branding the land-grant university: agricultural producers’ and community leaders’ awareness of the tripartite mission.” Abstract. Contact: kchodil@ufl.edu
• Kelsey Hall and Emily Rhoades, “Student publications’ place in agricultural communication curriculum.” Abstract. Contact: hall.700@osu.edu
• Erica Goss Irlbeck, Cindy Akers and Mindy Brashears, “A content analysis of food safety measures on television’s Food Network.” Abstract. Contact: erica.irlbeck@ttu.edu
• Emily Rhoades and Jason Ellis, “Food Tube: online coverage of food safety.” Abstract. Contact: rhoades.100@osu.edu

Please check with the authors if you would like to review full reports.

Getting basic: land, water, assets – and education. World Development Report 2008 cites these four as key instruments in using agriculture for development. “Education is often the most valuable asset for rural people to pursue opportunities in the new agriculture,” according to the report. “Yet education levels in rural areas tend to be dismally low worldwide.”

In this report, “education” was interpreted broadly. It included nonformal training and information services to provide technical and business skills useful in the new agriculture – and the rural non-farm economy.

Posted at: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/intwdr2008/resources/wdr_00_book.pdf

Not much interaction on the Web about genetically modified food . If that statement sounds impossible you may find interest in research reported in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication . Using as many as 107 search engines over two stages, researchers Paul Wouters and Diana Gerbec uncovered relatively little interaction.

“The overwhelming majority of results we obtained were postings of information about GM food. Most of these were clippings and articles from traditional media. Even within the domain of discussion and news groups, most hits were less dialogical than they seemed. It is striking how often discussion groups and e-mail forums are used for the distribution of printed articles about GM food. The mountain of information about GM food that we uncovered gave birth to a very small mound of mediated interaction.”

Title: Interactive internet?

Posted at http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol8/issue4/wouters.html

A call for more consumer research about meat information systems. An article we have added to the ACDC collection reports findings of a survey among meat purchasers in Scotland. Results revealed that consumer views on meat production varied widely, and that consumers had concerns about food safety, animal welfare and meat purchasing.  Beyond that, consumers showed limited knowledge about the underpinning standards and systems of meat safety (such as food registration, labeling and information available).  Authors recommended “much wider research” among consumers about their understanding of, interest in, and trust in these dimensions of their food supply.

Title: Consumer perceptions of meat production

When bottom-up development becomes top-down . You probably are familiar with the Farmer Field School (FFS) approach in agricultural and rural development. Introduced in the late 1990s, has become increasingly popular, internationally, as producer centered, locally led, problem based and oriented to self-discovery.

However, an article we added recently to the ACDC collection raises a bright caution flag. Marc Schut and Stephen Sherwood cited three case examples in Ecuador of ways in which the FFS approach became eroded. “Supporting farmers to local innovations became technology transfer again, and the farmer-led, demand-driven character was replaced by externally-driven development.”

Title: FFSs in translation

Posted at: www.leisa.info > Magazine > 23(4)

How agricultural communications began: a helpful reminder. Thanks to Bob Kern, emeritus faculty member of Iowa State University, for this report. He says a recent note in ACDC News about long-ago agricultural communications stirred something in his memory.

“Many of us in agricultural communication tend to assume the field didn’t really get started until our medium came on the scene. For me, that’s leaflets, journals, newspapers, etc. But people were sharing technical information long before then, I surmise.

When I was reading for my second language requirement as a Ph.D. candidate at University of Wisconsin (1958), I practiced on a volume of memoir of Napoleon III, the leader credited with razing and rebuilding what thrills us now as the center of Paris. In addition to recounting all the bridges he stimulated, he reported some items tracing to his forebear, Napoleon I. One note especially took my eye–and I still remember it. He recalled that Napoleon I had advised farmers of the day to seek the best methods for culture and husbandry by sending a son to work for six months or more with the best farmer in the area.

That was well before, in the third quarter of the Twentieth Century, Isaac Asimov led off an article with the sentence (probably re-phrased): We will be in the Information Age when we realize that we can move information without moving people.”

Communicator activities approaching

Voices from the Dust Bowl . “These people were dying to sing about their plight,” said Charles Todd in describing his recording experiences in California migrant worker camps during 1940-41. Through a Farm Security Administration program, he and Robert Sonkin recorded songs of rural families who had been forced westward by economic depression and prolonged drought in the Dust Bowl of the Midwest. According to Todd, the camps were full of singers and guitar, banjo and mouth harp players.

You can listen to songs from these camps and review other materials about the plight of those migrant farm workers by visiting the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress at: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/afctshtml/tsme.html .This site, “The migrant experience,” includes live links to an assortment of recorded songs.

Best regards and good searching . Please pass along your reactions, suggestions and ideas for the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center. Feel free to invite our help as you search for information. And please suggest (or send) agricultural communications documents we might add to this unique collection. We welcome them in hard copy (sent to Ag Com Documentation Center, 510 LIAC, 1101 S. Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801) or in electronic format sent to docctr@library.uiuc.edu .

When you see interesting items you cannot find locally or online , get in touch with us. We will help you gain access.

2008-01-11