Month: January 2008

Meet a rural broadcasting “bloke on a bike.” You can track the travels of an Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) rural reporter who has been broadcasting across Australia from a motorcycle. During the early months of this year, Drew Radford of ABC “Country Hour” has been traveling nationwide “on a quest to find the innovative and the interesting, the clever and the just plain strange in rural Australia.”

He is broadcasting using 3G telephone network technology mounted on a motorcycle.  He also is testing a geo-tag 3G phone, which has a 5 mega-pixel camera. The system permits him to upload geo-tagged photos onto the web from wherever he is. You can hear interviews, see photos and watch videos.

Title: Say g’day to a bloke on a bike

Posted at http://www.abc.net.au/rural/content/2007/s2156047.htm

Strong support for country of origin labeling (COOL) . We recently added to the ACDC collection a report of survey research about this subject among a sample of residents in New Jersey. About 84 percent of respondents said they would like markets to provide information about country of origin of fresh produce. The Rutgers researchers found that those who were married, self-employed, had higher incomes or possessed more education were more likely to support COOL.

Title: Country of origin labeling of fresh produce

Posted at http://dafre.rutgers.edu/documents/ramu/countryoriginjun_2006.pdf

Is fast-food promotion a significant cause of obesity? That’s a good question, according to results of a diary survey among a sample of Canadian households. Researchers Timothy Richards and Luis Padilla used econometric analysis to examine data that involved more than 5,600 restaurant visits and 262 individual foods chosen over a five-year sample period. They focused on price-promotion strategies and not mass advertising.

Findings suggested that “the principal effect [of price promotion] is to cause fast food consumers to purchase more often, or buy more on each visit. While this is likely viewed as a welcome outcome by marketing managers in the food industry, from a public policy perspective it provides support for those who argue in favor of regulating the marketing of fast food to groups at risk of obesity.”

Title: Promotion and fast food demand: where’s the beef?

100th anniversary prompts many orange smiles. The “Sunkist Smile” has been generating a lot of camera activity throughout the U. S. You can see some of the results on the web site of Sunkist Growers, a cooperative owned by more than 6,000 citrus producers in California and Arizona. Be prepared to see smiles from babies, puppies, Charlie Chaplin, Mickey Mouse, Superman and a host of others.

“Slice and Click” is the theme of this anniversary contest that began during February and ended in mid-May. Contestants submitted photos of themselves online with Sunkist Smiles (orange wedges in their mouths) and 25- to 40-word captions about why or how they enjoy Sunkist citrus.

The Cooperative Communicators Association newsletter, CCA News , explains: “Some of those images will travel worldwide in promotional materials. And later this year, the Sunkist Smile will be featured on the huge display screen in New York’s Times Square.”

Visit the “Sunkist Smile” at www.sunkist.com/smiles/

Caught in the middle: extensionists/advisers and agri-environmental policy. Pressures for standardized, tightly-focused delivery of programs implementing the European Union agri-environmental policy (AEP) may be limiting extension efforts, according to research in England and Finland. Such pressures may also be “failing to bring about the long term shift in thinking and action that will be necessary if farmers are to learn about, and implement, environmental management in any more thoroughgoing sense.”

Those insights come from research findings reported in Sociologia Ruralis . Interviews with extensionists and advisers in those countries revealed two themes:

• In Finland, some advisers’ desire to cultivate the trust of farmers led them to communicate a vision of AEP as foremost an income support measure and only incidentally environmental in scope and purpose.
• In England, particularly, bureaucratic desire to program efficiently through “arms length” management by advisers limited their exercise of professional judgment.

Researchers suggested giving extensionists/advisers a much wider exercise of autonomous professional judgment to achieve outcomes that are tailored to specific settings and sensitive to the preferences and knowledge of farmers.

Title: Interpreting and reinterpreting agri-environmental policy

“Communicating science in the evolving world of social media” is the title of a recent article in Food Insight newsletter from the International Food Information Council.  Blogs, vlogs, RSS feeds, wikis, podcasts and other user-generated content provided through Web 2.0 offer “tremendous opportunity for those willing to step out of their ‘first generation’ comfort zones.”

This article describes new efforts of the Council to communicate science using social media.  It also offers guidelines for operating successfully in this dynamic landscape.

Posted at http://ific.org/foodinsight/2008/jf/socialmediafi108.cfm

Communicator activities approaching

“Stand by your ham” is the title of a lively YouTube video intended to alert consumers to economic problems in the UK pig industry. Yes, it plays on the popular song, “Stand by your man.” A group of pig producers recorded it recently in a London studio. You can view this “new media” effort in rural-urban communications by going to YouTube www.youtube.com , then conducting a site search on the title.

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.

2008-01-10

Record-breaking campaign celebrates food that Britain produces .  A news report we have added to the ACDC collection describes results of the national British Food Fortnight campaign that took place September 22-October 7, 2007.  The report gives details about this sixth annual “Buy British” campaign that reached and involved an unprecedented audience.

• Thousands of food festivals, promotions, exhibits and other events took place.
• Media coverage included BBC News, Radio 2, ITV, QVC, every national newspaper and publications covering “an enormous breadth of interest groups.”
• The “Buy British” message was seen or heard more than 300 million times.
• The BFF website received 5.8 million hits and was visited by 340,000 people.
• A volunteer network of 9,000 chefs helped schools teach children how to cook.
• Hundreds of schools organized visits to farms and toured local butchers and greengrocers.
• Food service organizations put British food on thousands of menus in pubs, restaurants and hospitals.

Title: British Food Fortnight

Related article posted at: www.britishfoodfortnight.co.uk/media-area/press-statements/biggest-ever-national-celebration-of-british-food

Facing the risky side of rural journalism. The International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) recently reported how some journalists covering rural affairs were swept up in danger and conflict during 2007.  This report was based on research we provided through the IFAJ/ACDC partnership for professional development.

You can monitor the experiences of 12 journalists who were killed, arrested, assaulted or otherwise harassed in their efforts to cover rural affairs in nine countries.

Title: Rural coverage risky (again) in 2007

Posted at: http://www.ifaj.org/news/Web%20feature_Journalistdeaths.pdf

“I believe the song is pretty much the same.” In the previous issue of ACDC News we noted a question on the minds of some retired U. S. communicators. They had been invited to consider speaking at a conference of the Association for Communication Excellence in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Life and Human Sciences (ACE) during June. “Have technologies and processes changed so greatly that insights of earlier years now hold little value?” they wondered.  Here are two reactions:

• “I think that while technology changes, the heart of communicating to the various audiences we reach does not.”  (Joanne Littlefield)

• “As a bystander from the many years of participating in and watching Agricultural Communication content and methods, I believe the song is pretty much the same.  The technology used to communicate the messages isn’t the message.  The content may be organized somewhat differently, but the sources and users are still much the same.”  (Bill Tedrick)

Your thoughts also are welcomed.  Send them to us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu . (Note: a panel of ACE retirees is scheduled to speak during June at the ACE conference.)

Passing of a pioneer .  We join others in recognizing the life and contributions of William B. Ward who died April 27 at the age of 90. During 26 years as head of what is now the Department of Communication at Cornell University, he provided national and international leadership in education, scholarship and program development in journalism and communication related to agriculture. The unit he led became one of the largest and most emulated of its kind. His book, Reporting Agriculture , was among the early and influential references for professional education in this field.  International experience during his career included service in the Philippines, Argentina, India, Nigeria, Syria, Indonesia, Guatemala and Honduras.

You can learn more about his career at: www.legacy.com/theithacajournal/obituaries.asp?Page=Lifestory&PersonId=108658677

“Acclaimed photo was faked.” That headline from the European Journalism Centre alerted readers to this cautionary tale about ethics in digital natural resource photography:

“An award-winning photograph of a herd of endangered Tibetan antelopes apparently undisturbed by a passing train on the controversial Qinghai-Tibet railway has been exposed as a fake. The image was widely hailed in China as a symbol of harmonious co-existence between man and nature and strong testimony against any adverse effect of the new railway on the animals.”

Title: Acclaimed photo was faked

You can view the report and photo at: http://www.ejc.net/media_news/acclaimed_photo_was_faked

When food consumers fear agro-terrorism. Growing consumer interest in local rather than imported foods is often related to concerns about agro-terrorism, according to research by a team of Rutgers University economists. Their findings revealed that one-third of the consumers they surveyed said the threat of agroterrorism had caused them to think locally when it comes to their produce purchases.  Findings also suggested some specific attributes common among consumers who show such a preference.

Posted at http://dafre.rutgers.edu/documents/ramu/agroterrorism.pdf

Communicator activities approaching

Insights from the lexophiles (lovers of words). We close this issue of ACDC News with some eye-opening insights that involve food, agriculture and communications.  The contributor of them may wish to remain anonymous. With our apologies:

• Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.
• He had a photographic memory which was never developed.
• A boiled egg is hard to beat.
• A chicken crossing the road – poultry in motion

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 .

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

2008-01-09

Could cloning generate something like the biotech “frankenfood” saga? An article in The Economist addressed that question soon after an endorsement by the U. S. Food and Drug Administration early this year. The endorsement declared food derived from the offspring of cloned cows, pigs and goats to be safe for human consumption.

This article identified three reasons to think that food from clones need not spark the same kind and level of concern among consumers as had the arrival of biotechnology in agriculture more than a decade ago.

Title: Son of Frankenfood?

Posted at: www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10534084

On the birth of Frankenfoods and the power of metaphors. We recently added to the ACDC collection an article in PR Reporter that describes the origin of the word, Frankenfoods. Author Jay Byrne of v-Fluence Interactive Public Relations also explored food-related wording used in verbal battlefields related to biotechnology and organic methods of producing food.

“Language counts,” he concluded.

Title: Attack of the killer labels

Posted at: www.v-fluence.com/home/resources/articles/attack-of-the-killer-labels.html

European citizens express their views about animal welfare . “Attitudes of EU citizens towards animal welfare” is the title of a March 2007 report of research by the European Commission. According to the conclusions:

• There is a considerable interest in animal welfare standards. On average, citizens rated the importance of the welfare of farmed animals at almost 8 on a maximum scale of 10.
• Most expressed some willingness to change their usual place of shopping in order to purchase products more friendly to animal welfare.
• They expressed need for improved information about welfare conditions that lie behind the products seen on shelves. Labeling was identified as particularly important.
• Most said they believe that animal welfare standards in individual EU countries have improved over the last decade.
• Citizens consider farmers to be best-placed to ensure these welfare improvements.
• Television is the source by which citizens said they would most like to receive more information about this subject.

Title: Attitudes of EU citizens towards animal welfare

See the report at: http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_270_en.pdf

Communicators offer winning tips for judging dairy cattle. Thanks to staff members at AgriMarketing magazine for alerting us to sure-fire tips for winning the annual Hoard’s Dairyman cow judging contest. These techniques came from the creative staff of Charleston/Orwig, a marketing communications firm headquartered in Wisconsin dairyland.

You can see this video at: http://blog.fieldassignment.com

Go to Archives > March 2008 > Scroll to “Making the grade.”

“It may be time to drop the term ‘precision agriculture’.” Prairie Farmer columnist Willie Vogt offered that thought in a recent issue. He cited a specialist in emerging technologies who suggested that all agriculture is precision agriculture. The specialist was referring to the increased use of technologies for autosteering, grid soil sampling and use of management zones for managing crop fertility.

Title: Rethinking the role of precision

Contact us by return e-note if you would like to see this column.

Nine new agricultural communications research papers . Here are nine papers presented in the agricultural communications section of the Southern Association of Agricultural Scientists. This meeting took place during February in Dallas, Texas.

• “Usability evaluation of an online media resource guide” by Cindy Akers, David Doerfert, Todd Chambers, Kim Cooper and Chad Davis
• “Research themes, authors and methodologies in the Journal of Applied Communications : a ten-year look” by Leslie D. Edgar, Tracy Rutherford and Gary Briers
• “A curriculum for university agricultural communication programs: a synthesis of research” by Tammy M. Ettredge, and Kimberly A. Bellah
• “UF’s [University of Florida’s] scientific thinking and educational partnership: an approach for genetics outreach” by Lisa Hightower, Ricky Telg, Courtney Meyers, Tracy Irani and Maria Gallo
• “A national evaluation of the beef cattle industry’s use of communication channels to obtain information regarding food safety” by Moriah Jennings, Todd Brashears, Scott Burris, Cindy Akers and Mindy Brashears
• “Feeding the debate: a framing analysis of the news media coverage of organic food” by Courtney Meyers and Katie Chodil
• “Examining JAC: an analysis of the scholarly progression of the Journal of Applied Communications ” by Traci Naile, Tanner Robertson and Dwayne Cartmell
• “Louisiana consumer perceptions of environmental practices in farming” by Robert J. Soileau and Joe W. Kotrlik
• “Usability evaluation of the Cotton Economics Research Institution web site” by Samantha D. Yates, Cindy Akers and Erica Irlbeck

You can review these papers at: http://agnews.tamu.edu/saas/saasproceedings.html

Communicator activities approaching

Instant messaging in agriculture . Writing in Southwest Farm Press , Ron Smith observed that a system of abbreviated messages might help farmers as they communicate by instant messaging. Kids do it, he said (e.g., ur for you are). Why shouldn’t busy farmers have a specific language to handle the technical aspects of daily life and work? Here are some of the examples he offered:

Lgf – let’s go fishing

Lgfn – let’s go fishing now

Cro – cows are out

Tnd – truck in ditch

Gtnrn – getting any rain?

Title: Abbreviations might help ag

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.

2008-01-08

Creating internet field days . A farmer-driven agricultural organization in Victoria, Australia, is using the internet to keep farm business members posted on progress in crop trials throughout a growing season. An article we added recently explains how the Birchip Cropping Group (BCG) uses “Virtual Agronomy” as a supplement to field days, technical fax bulletins, newsletters and a manual of trial results.

For example, during a recent crop season farmers could monitor progress in a variety trial of canola, monola and crambe. They received written information, along with photographs, video footage and/or audio recordings. So at various stages they could see what crambe looks like, view images of canola and crambe at flowering stages, and observe how crambe produced only one seed per pod.

Title: Internet field days: helping farmers to make better decisions

Visit the BCG web site at www.bcg.org.au

A 20-year review – U. S. news media coverage of biotechnology. We are pleased to add to the ACDC collection a speech on this subject by Jim Webster, president of Webster Communications, Washington, D.C. He spoke on January 16 at a Farm Foundation conference that focused on the second decade of crop biotechnology.

In his experience, the mainstream U. S. news media have done a reasonably fair job of covering the progress of crop biotechnology. He described several factors that have led him to that conclusion. In addition, he identified topics to which he believes media have not given adequate attention. Among them:

• The question of “whether we have the regulatory scheme right.”
• Long-term effect on the wheat industry of the “collective split decision” to resist biotech wheat.
• Environmental and safety impacts of plant biotechnology.

Title: Crop biotechnology going forward: a news media perspective

Does the song remain the same across the years? That question came to the minds of some retired U. S. communicators when they were invited to consider speaking at a conference of ACE (Association for Communication Excellence in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Life and Human Sciences). They wondered:

• How valuable today is the wisdom they gained through their experience?
• “From 16 mm film through Beta and 3/4 tape to the digital age,” have technologies and processes changed so greatly that insights of earlier years now hold little value?
• Or is there a core of enduring professional insight and wisdom that communicators can share? As one communicator put it, “Does the song remain the same?”

Please pass along your thoughts. Send them to us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu

Forty-plus years of change in agricultural communications . We appreciate receiving a radio interview aired during January on the “Georgetown University Forum” in Washington, D.C. It featured more than 40 years of transition in agricultural communications in the U.S. through the career experiences of Larry Quinn, Assistant Director, Office of Communications, U.S. Department of Agriculture.

He described some of the information technologies he has seen and used, beginning with rural telephone service to their Oklahoma farm home during the 1940s. Looking back, he noted, those “party lines” provided his first experience with teleconferencing. His career took him into rural programming via radio, television, motion pictures, satellite live television, video webcasting and beyond.  Communications doesn’t stay still very long, he observed, and he identified several trends and future directions. Check with us if you are interested in this half-hour interview, which is archived in CD format.

Title: Communications in transition

“How thorough is communication in your projects?” Geoff Thompson asked that question of agricultural development associates in a recent article we added to the ACDC collection. He is with the Centre for Alleviation of Poverty through Secondary Crops Development in Asia and Pacific (CAPSA), a United Nations subsidiary. His article addressed the vital role of effective communications in the success of agricultural and rural development programs.

Title: Key issues in research communication

Posted at: www.uncapsa.org/flash_detail.asp?VJournalKey=%20%20%20%20%20590

“Not very thorough” seems to be the disappointing international answer to his question . A background paper for the World Congress on Communication for Development (October 2006) put it this way:

“Despite increasing recognition of the central role that communication plays in promoting agricultural and rural development … national and local rural development plans hardly include communication components and there are limited examples of communication for development services to improve living standards in rural areas.”

This may sound sadly familiar if you are a veteran of communicating about – and within -agricultural and rural development programs of any kind. Thousands of documents within the ACDC collection testify to this challenge. Please let us know ( docctr@library.uiuc.edu ) if you would like to see examples – or can provide examples.

Title: World congress on communication for development

Posted at: www.fao.org/sd/dim_kn1/docs/kn1_060602d1_en.pdf > page 8

Dirty laundry is helping promote cotton . The cotton industry is using a mobile marketing event – “Cotton’s Dirty Laundry Tour” – to attract a new generation of young consumers to cotton.  An article in Southeast Farm Press called attention to the purpose and approach of this “experiential marketing” effort. Last year Cotton Incorporated visited 11 college campuses to involve students in interactive educational games and activities. Among them: cotton origami, denim fit guide, color sort game, cotton fabric trends and a denim drive.

Title: “Dirty Laundry” college tour aims at creating cotton loyalty

Further information about the activity is posted at: www.accesscotton.com

Communicator activities approaching

We close with a theological question of the day . It came to light in this recent headline in a farm periodical:

“Horses’ prayers answered by Kentucky rescue farm”

The article described activities of a charitable organization that takes in unwanted or neglected horses, nurses them back to health and finds new homes for them. At a deeper level, does the headline invite thought about a matter that may hold special interest for agricultural communicators – the communications patterns and prayer life of horses?

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.

2008-01-07

New series about boosting rural readership .  During recent months the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists web site has featured a series of articles about ways to attract rural readers.  Uniquely, this series has roots in a set of guidelines described a half-century ago by Donald R. Murphy in a book, What farmers read and like . It summarized findings from more than 20 years of readership surveys and experiments (1938-1961) among farm men and women in two Midwest states.

Our ACDC staff, in producing this series through partnership with IFAJ, invited IFAJ members to review some of those guidelines and evaluate how well they apply today.  Click on these live links to review the reactions and advice online:

“Are guidelines timeless for attracting farm readers?”

“How to create front covers that attract rural readers”

“How to choose subjects and headlines that pull in readers”

“Using color today to boost your rural readership”

“How to use photographs to boost your rural readership”

We extend special thanks to the professionals who contributed to this series and invite any reactions and suggestions you may have.

Traffic light labeling of foods .  If you are not acquainted with this labeling system in the United Kingdom you may be interested in a report we added recently from the Food Standards Agency.  According to the report, a growing number of UK supermarkets and food manufacturers are using traffic light colors on the labels of some products to help consumers make healthful choices.  How does it work?  Each label contains four panels that show at a glance if the food has high, medium or low amounts of fat, saturated fat, sugars and salt.

• A red panel in the label means the food is high in one of those nutrients we should be trying to cut down on:  fat, saturated fat, sugars or salt.
• An amber panel means the item is “an OK choice most of the time, but you might want to go for green for that nutrient some of the time.”
• A green panel means that food item is low in fat, saturated fat, sugar or salt.

The more green lights, the healthier the choice.  You can see sample labels in the article.

Title: Traffic light labeling

Posted at http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/foodlabels/trafficlights

Why the internet is no substitute for a library .  Our experience in developing the ACDC collection during the past 25 years has taken us face-to-face with this topic. Internet research helps us find amazing information. Yet from experience we have discovered some limits of it – and some strengths of library collections and services.  So it was a pleasure recently to read a 2007 book by Mark Y. Herring, Fool’s gold: why the internet is no substitute for a library. Herring’s analysis led him to suggest:

“We should be adapting the web as a tool of the library rather than changing the library to fit the web.”

What a day! Staff members of Farm Journal magazine are helping readers share photos of some of their frustrating experiences and activities. For example, a photo in the February issue featured a tractor that had slid into a pond.

“If you’ve had one of those days…we’d love to share it with our readers,” the staff members explained. They invited prints, slides or high-resolution digital images.

You can see an example at: www.agweb.com > Search > “what a day” tailgate

Communication – at the heart of change .  Open, participatory information and communication processes lie at the heart of sustainable human and social development.  That message came through strongly in a 2007 report commissioned by the Department for International Development, United Kingdom Government. The report emphasized how media and effective communication processes are often poorly understood, downplayed, used in fragmented ways and feared by those in power.  However, they are:

• The lifeblood of healthy political processes
• At the heart of good governance
• Fundamental to a vibrant civil society
• A key to efficient, equitable economics

“Helping billions of people currently living in a state of absolute poverty to improve their lives is the greatest challenge facing the world over the next 20 years,” the report concluded.  It suggested ways in which to strengthen communications in that effort.

Thanks to Geoff Thompson in Indonesia for alerting us to this report. Effective work of agricultural journalists and communicators will be vital to success in the challenges it identifies.

Title: At the heart of change

Posted at: www.panos.org.uk/pdf/reports/heart_of_change_web.pdf

Communicator activities approaching

How to stir the creative juices .  We close this issue of ACDC News with a comment by Grant Wood, as reported in a recent issue of the Stockyards Collector .  He created the classic “American Gothic” painting and many others that revealed Midwest folklore and life in the countryside during the early to mid 1900s.

“All the really good ideas I ever had

came to me while I was milking a cow.”

Would you like to see a few examples of Grant Wood creations? Check these sites:

http://cgfa.sunsite.dk/w/p-wood2.htm

www.crma.org/collection/wood/wood.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 .

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

2008-01-06

Using the language of war in covering agriculture .  We recently added to the ACDC collection an article in Science Communication that included a case example of agricultural war language.  It involved an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in the United Kingdom.  Researchers found that a search of the Lexis-Nexis database using the keyword “war,” for example, identified 159 articles in national UK newspapers from March 20-30, 2001.  Here are other militaristic metaphors they found in media and other reporting:  Battle. Fight. Strikes. Killer. Marching. Enemy. Invasion. Foreign invader. Fortress mentality. Attack. Siege.

In this framing, authors noted, the handling of FMD was conceptualized as a war against an invisible and foreign enemy, the virus.  Veterinarians and farmers became soldiers. The animals were recast as enemies alongside the virus. Basically, authors found the language of war used consciously for definite political and ideological purposes.  “…it acted to mobilize, justify solutions, and exculpate government from responsibility and gave focus and mode of operation.  This is the classic war metaphor framing.”

Title: Metaphors and biorisks

Let’s banish “organic.” Businesses as organic. T-shirts as organic. Shampoo as organic. Computer software as organic. So maybe it is not surprising to see “organic” on the Lake Superior State University 2008 List of Banished Words. You may recall that wordsmiths at this Michigan university annually invite nominations of words to be “banished from the Queen’s English for misuse, overuse and general uselessness.”

You can see the complete 2008 list – and add your own comments – at:

www.lssu.edu/banished/current.php

Getting a view of the core periodical literature in agricultural communications. The Journal of Agricultural and Food Information recently published an analysis of core periodical literature in the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center here at the University of Illinois. Researcher Joe Zumalt identified more than 16,000 articles from scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers and, now, their electronic equivalents.  Among his findings:

• Periodical literature makes up 55 percent of the ACDC collection.
• These articles, published between the 1850s and 2006, featured agriculture-related communicating in countries around the world. “The findings suggest that what began as a United States-based resource is becoming international in substantial ways.”
• Between 1981 (when collecting began) and 2006, the total number of different periodicals represented in the collection grew more than five-fold, from 326 to 1,766.
• Periodical literature of this field shows a continuing lack of centrality. In 2006, articles in the top 10 periodicals comprised only 37 percent of the total.
• Findings reveal the “need to search across an extremely wide range of disciplines for the periodical literature of agricultural communications and provide helpful directions and guidelines for doing so.”

“The results of this study underscore the importance and value of the ACDC effort to identify and make available the widely scattered literature of agricultural communications,” he observed.

Posted at http://www.ideals.uiuc.edu/handle/2142/3495

Who would expect to find agricultural communications literature there? From time to time we can’t help sharing with you our adventure in collecting information about the communications aspects of agriculture.  Here are some unexpected journals to which our detective work has taken us during recent weeks:

• Environmental Modeling and Software
• Food and Chemical Toxicology
• Ecological Economics
• Social Work in Education
• Annals of the Association of American Geographers
• Social Science Computer Review
• Journal of Sustainable Forestry
• Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health
• Ecos
• Health, Risk and Society

Local knowledge should be incorporated into formal studies of soils , argued A.G.C. Alves in an Interciencia article we added recently to the ACDC collection.  The author described how “many peasant and indigenous societies have created their own soil use strategies, having little or no contact with official research and rural communication agencies.  Management techniques used by these societies are mainly based on local knowledge systems.”  They encompass non-agricultural uses of soils (e.g., pottery making) as well as agricultural uses.

Alves observed that more studies about the interfaces between humans and the soils with which they work “could be an aid to the advancement of formal soil knowledge, also giving an opportunity to understanding and valuing local soil knowledge.”

The potentials seem relevant in any society.

Title: Local knowledge and soil use: an ethnopedological approach

Communicator activities approaching

Earthy evidence of information management .  We close this issue of ACDC News with a headline that caught our eye recently in a farm paper.  It may hold special interest for agricultural editors and extension communicators:

“Learn how to manage horse manure from MSU extension”

Oh, those modifier gremlins.

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.

2008-01-05

Rediscovering agricultural advisory (extension) services . “After a period of neglect, agricultural advisory services have returned strongly to the international development agenda,” according to Jock R. Anderson of the World Bank. In a background paper for World Development Report 2008 , he said he considers it “highly appropriate” to acknowledge the roles and challenges of an effective evolution of agricultural advisory services in the coming decades.

What new functions for extension might we expect?  Anderson cited several beyond the conventional function of providing knowledge for improved agricultural productivity:

• Linking smallholder farmers to high-value and export markets
• Promoting environmentally sustainable production techniques
• Coping with the effects of HIV/AIDS and other health challenges that affect agriculture

Title: Agricultural advisory services

Posted at: www.worldbank.org

New source of grammar hints .  More than two dozen grammar hints are now available online from the Writing Special Interest Group of ACE (Association for Communication Excellence in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Life and Human Sciences).  Topics range from informal spelling and “the forgotten semicolon” to accuracy of online language translation services.  These hints, generated during the past three years, were posted online in December.

Posted at: http://www.aceweb.org/sigs/writing/grammar.php

Six reasons to celebrate Ag Day. As National Agriculture Day approaches on March 20, the Agriculture Council of America offers six reasons for recognizing – and celebrating – it. They are described briefly in an article, “The importance of ag literacy,” we added recently to the ACDC collection.

You can read the reasons at: www.agday.org/education/celebrate.php

Why is it taking so long to build bridges between formal and informal science?

Professor Anil Gupta, Indian Institute of Management, asked that question in a 2007 commentary we have added to the ACDC collection.  He emphasized how bridging the gap between scientific research and local solutions could be beneficial, citing examples of effective traditional solutions practiced by local farmers. Several reasons may account for this gap, he observed:

• Scientists often question the value of traditional knowledge.
• Peer pressure may push them and their students to focus on high-impact research with wide visibility and more potential for career advancement.
• A bias towards chemical-intensive technologies may exist, and researchers may be put off by differing protocols for validating non-chemical innovations.
• Local innovators and holders of traditional knowledge have feeble, fragmented and easily-ignored influence on policies that might help bridge the gap.

The author identified several communications-based measures to help bridge this gap in any part of the world.

Title: How local knowledge can boost scientific studies

Posted at: http://www.scidev.net/dossiers/index.cfm?fuseaction=dossierreaditem&dossier=7&type=3&itemid=581&language=1

Several favorite journalism films with a rural touch .  In response to a recent call for favorites, we are pleased to pass along these recommended favorites:

• Country (with Jessica Lange).  It is “another movie that’s interesting but bleak.  Tie-in with farm market reports.”

• Year of Living Dangerously. “Not rural per se but an excellent journalism movie.”

• State Fair (original version).  “Loved the family’s excitement in their trip to the Iowa State Fair…and the friendly competition at the livestock exhibit.”

• Sweetland. “Gritty and romantic tale of rural Minnesota life.”

What others might you add to the list?  Send them by return e-note.  Thanks.

See the 2008 winners in Geographical photo competition .  Twelve winners are featured in the February issue of Geographical , official magazine of the Royal Geographical Society, UK.  You can view a gallery of honored photos that were selected from more than 1,000 entries from all over the world.  Categories include people and culture, wildlife, landscape, travel and environmental issues.  You will see some outstanding rural photos among them.

Posted at: www.geographical.co.uk/features/photostories/poty_winners_feb08.html

More cooperation – less conflict – in ground water planning. If you are involved in communicating about water use you may find interest in a recent article that confirms and describes the vital role you can play.  Authors Vincent C. Tidwell and Cors van den Brink noted how access to ground water can often be contentious.  Scientists can contribute to planning efforts in terms of technical feasibility. But communicators can help provide the vital connecting link – “a process for inclusive and transparent sharing of ideas.” Authors described two examples illustrating how “cooperative modeling” processes can lead to successful ground water plans.  These processes involve shared, adaptive learning/communications.

Title: Cooperative modeling: linking science, communication and ground water planning

Posted at: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1745-6584.2007.00394.x

Communicator activities approaching

What’s this about upheavals? Thanks to Don Schwartz who caught an interesting twist on a recent headline in ACDC News:  “Survey shows an upheaval in eating patterns.”

He asked:  “‘upheaval’ – re a food story?”

“Could have been worse,” he added, passing along these headlines we are sure no rural journalists wrote:

• “New study of obesity looks for larger test group”
• “Kids make nutritious snacks”
• “Cold wave linked to temperatures”

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.

2008-01-04

An eye-opener: communications (and trust) in complex agricultural  networks. Supply chain management has emerged as a concept for coordinating functions and actions of companies throughout value chains. Seldom have we seen such a graphic portrayal of the complexities of supply chain management than in a recent analysis by Tobias Hausen and Melanie Fritz, University of Bonn, Germany.  And seldom have we seen so clearly how effective communicating is pivotal to the success of it.

Authors describe a supply network involved in production of crops such as grain or produce.  Not only is the network incredibly complex.  It also is characterized by:

• Unforeseeable changes in demand
• Long lead times for production of inputs
• A fragmented tree structure for flow of materials
• System breakdowns that cause inefficient flows of material and information

“Several key areas of the network are in need for better communication and collaboration between network participants,” the authors observed.  And calls for information exchanges within such networks are revealing lack of trust among companies.

Title: Supply chain management in the life science sector

Posted at: http://ageconsearch.umn.edu > Conduct title search

What’s the difference between a barn cat and a house cat? How many eggs does a chicken lay in one day? Do pigs scratch their backs?  These and other questions from youngsters get addressed in an educational video series, “On the Farm,” from an award-winning educator, farmer, videographer and producer in upstate New York. Chris Fesko’s video series has earned more than 20 awards, including the Parent’s Choice 2002 Silver Honor Award.

Title: Do pigs scratch their backs?

Information at: http://www.fesko.com/pigs.html

Should we now be thinking of Development 2.0? Chris Addison raised that question in a journal article about the emerging range of facilities and innovations in web-based and internet services. Web logs.  Wikis.  Newsreaders.  Swikki.  Social bookmarking.  Dgroups.  A0.com. The author described use of new technologies such as these, then addressed other implications for development work.  For example:

• What used to be a three-year assignment for technical assistance on a development projects may become brief visits supplemented by Web 2.0 tools.
• A development project that used to depend on ground transportation may get handled with a web site, a Dgroup and a computer.
• New web applications are being used for dialogue, research, publishing and other aspects of development projects.

“How profoundly is the development of communications, and in particular the Internet, changing the development community and the way in which it works?” Addison asked.

Title: Web 2.0: a new chapter in development in practice?

About a delicate dance. Effective communicating is at the heart of healthy, long-term relationships between land owners and land operators, according to an article in Corn and Soybean Digest .  Reporter Karen Bernick identified suggestions for operators:

• Keep lines of communication open
• Be a good steward (e.g., controlling weeds, fertilizing appropriately)
• Know what is important to each landlord
• Show you care
• Be fair

Title: A delicate dance

Posted at: http://cornandsoybeandigest.com/ag-issues/delicate-dance-landowner-situations

“Freelance benefit program.” An oxymoron? That question came to mind when we saw the title of freelancer Claudette Lacombe’s article.  It appeared in the September 2007 issue of “The Farm Journalist,” newsletter of the Canadian Farm Writers’ Federation.  What benefit program for a freelancer?

Actually, Claudette has found a remarkable benefit that fits right in with her writing about water management issues in rural Alberta.  The article reports how she has turned her yard into an urban xeriscape demonstration project.  It also identifies a variety of benefits she – and others – are gaining from it.

Title: Freelance benefit program

Posted at: http://www.cfwf.ca/farmj/FJ__September07.pdf

Special thanks to John Brien of Australia, for contributing to the ACDC collection nearly a dozen new documents that help reveal his productive scholarship of more than 50 years.  They are part of a thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Agricultural Science at the University of Queensland (his second doctorate, actually).  The thesis title is “Research contributions in agricultural extension and communication.”

This thesis contains 16 selected presentations, reports and books dated between 1969 and 1988.  We previously had some of his materials in the ACDC collection and are delighted to add 11 more from this thesis. They reflect the valuable contributions of a respected scholar.  You can identify them by conducting an Author search (Brien) on the ACDC search page.  Let us know if you would like to gain access to them.

Any favorite journalism films – with a rural touch? The Commonwealth Press Union reported recently that subscribers to the online Small Newspaper Information Exchange had discussed their favorite journalism films. They identified more than 50 films.

Do you have any favorite journalism-related films that, in some way, involve rural life, people or activities?  Your nominations can come from any era – any region or country.

Please send the title(s) and we will report back to all about this important type of agricultural communicating. Reply to us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu .

Communicator activities approaching

More rural computer language. We close this issue of ACDC News with several out-on-the-web computer terms about surviving those rural winter chills.

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.

2008-01-03

“Co-op Kids” featured in a creative photo calendar .  Thanks to the Cooperative Communicators Association for alerting us to a creative project of the Tennessee Farmers Cooperative.  A popular calendar features this winning combination:

• Portraits or candid photos
• entered by customers, members or employees
• featuring children
• at special events or in everyday farm activities
• sporting their Co-op colors or
• displaying Co-op feed products or
• showing off their favorite pets or farm animals

You can view winning entries, by month, in the 2008 calendar.  It was announced in the December 2007 issue of Tennessee Cooperator .

Posted at: www.ourcoop.com/cooperator/december2007.pdf Proceed to page 27.

Second series of “Kill it, cook it, eat it” airs on BBC Three . A second television series in the United Kingdom about how farm animals make their way to the dining table aired on BBC Three Digital during January.  This time the producers focused on young animals:  veal, milk-fed lambs, kid goats and suckling pigs.  According to the BBC description:

“The programme asks how these animals are raised, where they come from, and how they’re killed and gutted.  Should taste take priority over the welfare of the animal?  And, ultimately how young is too young when it comes to eating baby animals?”

Thanks to Joe Watson and Don Gomery of the Guild of Agricultural Journalists for alerting us to this series, which reportedly stirred thousands of e-mails from viewers. The programs are available to play online only in the UK.

Among sources of information about the series: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/programmes/kill_it/index.shtml

www.fwi.co.uk/articles/2008/01/11/108957/farming-on-the-tv-a-special-report.html

What motivates growers involved in community supported agriculture .  An article in HortTechnology identified goals that motivate growers to take part in CSA, an alternative model of farming in which consumers contract to receive a share of food harvests.

CSA growers are motivated by multiple goals, according to researcher E. C. Worden.  Marketing was the goal mentioned most often, followed by interest in educating consumers.  Community wellbeing and environmental interests also motivated these growers.  The marketing motive was found to be “not solely monetary, but also philosophical” in the sense of achieving right livelihood and strengthening society’s relationships among (a) consumers, (b) the food they eat and (c) the land from which it comes.

Title: Grower perspectives in community supported agriculture

How to tap into one of the largest collections of agricultural information. A recent article in the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists newsletter, IFAJ News , offered tips to agricultural journalists for gathering information from AGRIS. It is the online database of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. As such it can become your doorway to a collection of more than two million documents. Joe Zumalt, ACDC coordinator and librarian here at the University of Illinois, outlined step-by-step procedures, using sample topics.

Title: AGRIS: an FAO information resource for the agricultural journalist

Posted at: http://www.ifaj.org/newsletter/december07/Zamultstory.pdf

Popcorn processing risk kept quiet? We have added to the ACDC collection a recent article from OMB (Office of Management and Budget) Watch about a health risk that the organization believes federal regulatory agencies have known for years and kept silent.  This risk involves use of diacetyl, a flavoring added to many types of food, including artificial butter flavoring in microwave popcorn.  It is linked to a debilitating disease, “popcorn workers lung.”

The article described lack of action by federal agencies and reported on unsuccessful efforts of media to gain access to information about research by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Title: Federal agencies knew of diacetyl dangers and kept silent

Posted at: http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/3970

Communications – missing link in participatory agricultural research? Much has been written about benefits when farmers work with scientists in planning and carrying out agricultural research.  A recent article in Appropriate Technology highlighted need for stronger communications in such efforts.  It explained how scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) carried out crop research with farmers in a region of southern Mexico. Among the findings reported:

• “Interaction with farmers provided maize breeders with invaluable information on the traits that are of local importance.”
• “Farmers, in turn, learnt about maize production and post-harvest storage.”
• “However…while the participatory research benefited scientists, only a relatively small number of farmers actually benefited directly.”

Findings called for research organizations to work closely with local outreach organizations, which are better placed to link farmers and researchers by virtue of their long-term, continuing contact.

Title: Participatory research: a catalyst for greater impact

I am the journalist .  We close this issue of ACDC News with a creed published in the June/July 2007 issue of Quill magazine.  This creed does not focus specially on agricultural journalism, but surely includes our field of interest.  Frank Crane is credited with expressing it during the early 1900s. We have taken the liberty of refining gender aspects.

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.

2008-01-02

Happy New Year and welcome to this first 2008 issue of news from the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center.

We are still like kids in a candy story .  “Are you finding much literature about agricultural journalism and communications?” friends sometimes ask.  We nod vigorously, then shake our heads in amazement at all we see from so many sources. As the new year begins this collection is approaching 31,500 documents involving agriculture-related communicating in 170 countries.  And we are hardly scratching the surface of this rich body of knowledge and experience.

Thanks for your encouragement and support. The Center has no huge budget.  But it has an increasingly important mission and valuable resource, a dedicated staff – and the inspiration of you who use the collection and help strengthen it.  We look forward to a new year of identifying information that helps you communicate effectively and grow professionally in this dynamic field of interest.  And we look forward to being in touch with you.

A fresh look at the creative side of rural communicating. You can get a fresh view of rural communicating in Gene Logsdon’s new book, The mother of all arts: agrarianism and the creative impulse .  It’s not the typical book about art.  It’s from a seasoned, articulate agricultural journalist and writer.  And perspectives in it about farm magazines, rural radio, country music, and agrarian writing and art will ring a bell for many who read ACDC News.

Something deep in agriculture and rural culture stirs the creative impulse, Logsdon argues, and he tracks some of the forms it takes.  He sees signs of a new agrarianism “that will flower as the Industrial Revolution ebbs away,” an agrarian instinct he finds latent in all of society.

Title: The mother of all arts

Survey shows an upheaval in eating patterns. A 2007 survey among consumers in Montreal, Canada, revealed that 92 percent had changed their eating habits because of risks or benefits associated with food.

“Compared to 2004, the results this year show a significant increase in food stress in connection with the risk associated with certain foods,” according to the head of the nutrition counseling firm ISA, which sponsored the survey.  Food stress is measured by adding up the decisions not to buy or not to eat a food product when it is associated with one of 10 risks identified on a measurement scale.

“On average, 2007 respondents had made 8.5 changes in their eating habits in relation to the 10 risks and 10 benefits identified on the measurement scale.”

Title: Recent survey on food stress

Posted at: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/October2007/10/c2239.html

“I’m sure the meter on it must be faulty,” wrote UK farmer Hugh Broom in a tongue-in-cheek commentary we have added to the ACDC collection from Farmers Weekly . He was referring to his mobile phone.

“Depressingly, in the past year, according to the screen, I have spent 1250 hours using it. … Even at 1000 minutes a month it works out at 8 days a year on the phone – that’s like a week away in another country and it’s not even booked as holiday.”

“So does all this connectivity make life easier or just more cluttered and stressful?”

Title: Mobile phone mayhem

Tips for biological scientists in working with media. The American Society of Plant Biologists offered tips in a web feature we have added to the ACDC collection. A few samples:

• Calls from journalists merit top priority.  “I will drop everything to talk to the press,” said a media workshop coordinator, Peggy Lemaux.

• Have a goal in mind for the interview and deliver a focused message.
• Be ready to answer questions on your research such as “What does it matter?”
• Information is not generally considered off the record if the off-the-record request is made after the scientist’s actual comment.
• Do not repeat misleading terms if a reporter uses them in a question.

Title: Accessing the media and Congress

Posted at: www.aspb.org/publicaffairs/editorial

IFAJ Executive to consider strategic plans. Executive Committee members of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists will consider strategies for moving the organization forward when they meet January 16-19 in Berlin, Germany. A report in AgroNews (Schweizer Landwirtschaft, Switzerland) briefly described a strategy paper, “IFAJ 2015,” to be used.  It will focus on globalization, development of services for members, potential updating of the web site, staffing needs and support for agricultural journalism in developing countries.  Thanks to treasurer Markus Rediger for providing this report.

Title: Agrarjournalisten wollen professioneller werden

Posted at: http://www.landwirtschaft.ch/de/aktuell/agronews/detail/article/2007/11/27/agrarjournalisten-wollen-professioneller-werden/?type=0&cHash=c43776cb08

Do we dare begin the year with a wrap-up as bad as this? Well, yes. In closing this issue of ACDC News we thank Hal Taylor for alerting us to these insights. They may hold special interest for rural communicators:

• When fish are in schools they sometimes take debate.

• To write with a broken pencil is pointless.
• If you take a laptop computer for a run you could jog your memory.
• Thieves who steal corn from a garden could be charged with stalking.

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 communication 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,

When you see interesting items you cannot find locally or online , get in touch with us. Tell us the titles and/or document numbers. We will help you gain access.

And please let us know if you would rather not receive ACDC News . As Year 2008 begins, we want to tell you how much we appreciate your interest in this complimentary electronic newsletter. We hope it is helpful, interesting and convenient for you. However, we do not want to send something to you that you would rather not receive. So at any time, please let us know if you would like to be removed from the list. You can do so by contacting us at the Documentation Center: docctr@library.uiuc.edu . Also let us know if your e-mail address changes.

Other possible subscribers you might suggest? Let us know of – or refer us to – associates or other persons you think might like to receive online alerts to future issues of ACDC News.

2008-01-01