Ray Elizabeth – Page 5 – Funk Library

ACDC News – Issue 06-18

Posted on January 1, 2006 by Elizabeth Ray

The Elvis of E. coli – still singing.

Want to hear some lively food safety songs by Carl Winter, a toxicologist at the University of California? Earlier, we mentioned his unusual approach to public education, putting his wording to contemporary tunes. You can listen to snippets of samples aired recently during an interview on National Public Radio.

Can you guess the tunes from the rhythm of the words?

“Goin’ to be a stomach ache tonight”
“Don’t get sickie wit’ it”
“I will survive”
“That’s how you wash your hands”

Posted at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5764064

Citizen juries used in rural India.

Various institutions in India are using citizen juries to involve a diverse array of farmers, food processors and marketers, consumers, government officials, scientists and others in discussions about current rural issues. An article in Leisa Magazine reported on procedures and results involving two juries. One assessed the pros and cons of using genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in small scale farming in India. The other examined three visions of farming and food processing for the next 20 years.

In both uses of this participatory method, jury members listened to testimony and cross-examined witnesses, then developed and presented their verdict.

Title: Citizen juries on GMOs and farming future in India
Posted at: http://www.ileia.org/index.php?url=article-details.tpl&p[_id]=12549

Update on rural broadband access in the U.S.

Twenty-four percent of rural Americans had high-speed internet connections at home at the end of 2005, according to a daily tracking survey for the Pew Internet and American Life Project. This compared with 39 percent of urban/suburban dwellers and revealed a continuing gap in access and adoption.

The 10-page summary also identified sources of broadband access, frequency and intensity of online use, and the kinds of activities for which rural residents use the internet.

Title: Rural broadband internet use
Posted at: http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Rural_Broadband.pdf

Role of government in rural broadband internet.

Ashley Ruiz analyzed this dimension during 2004 in a 31-page report that focused on:

• Size and nature of the rural-urban digital divide
• Effectiveness of previous and current federal programs
• Commonalities in rural electrification and broadband deployment
• Diverging views about the role of government
• Types of government support

Title: Broadband internet and rural America
Posted at: www.comm.ucsb.edu/publications/Ashley%20Ruiz.pdf

A barn-raising for community rural radio.

We recently identified a report about a “barn raising” that birthed a low-power FM station for a community-based farmworker organization in southwest Florida. In a two-day period, associates of the Prometheus Radio Project helped the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) construct a building and put Radio Conciencia on the air.

“In the past two days, we had experienced the magic of community collaboration. In a time when the airwaves are becoming increasingly monopolized, Radio Conciencia represents an accessible space and a powerful local resource, as well as a viable model for other communities.”

Title: Barn-raising on air
Posted at: http://www.prometheusradio.org/news_archive/articles_about_prometheus

Six special qualities of those who photograph the farmworker story.

Richard Steven Street, in his recent book entitled Photographing farmworkers in California, identified what he considered six resonating qualities “rarely found together:”

Profound sincerity and complete dedication.
Refusal to pander to cruelty.
Shared belief that the most interesting photography is human photography.
An easy union of aesthetics and politics, pictorial structure and content, seen in tender faces or grizzled hands, making it impossible to ignore even the subject’s most gritty and disturbing circumstances.
Concern for the broad range of human experience that rejects no detail as mundane or insignificant.
Willingness to confront reality. “To reveal the essence of a moment one must see it first; and to best see it, one must walk right up to it and face it head-on.”

Title: Photographing farmworkers in California

An alternative perspective on competition.

In an era of competitive, winner-take-all striving it is unusual to see the perspective offered by Jane Vella in her book about the power of dialogue in educating adults. Vella described her experiences in rural and other settings around the world. She said she puts learners to work in teams and soon sees evidence of competition among the teams. However, she explained:

“…not a destructive competition but a natural com + petition, asking together how the job could be done well, done better ( com: with, petition: asking).”

Title: Learning to listen, learning to teach

Communicator activities approaching

October 8-11, 2006
“Delivering information for the new life sciences.” U. S. Agricultural Information Network conference at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
Information: http://usain.mannlib.cornell.edu

October 12-13, 2006
“Newspapers and community-building.” Twelfth annual symposium co-sponsored by the Huck Boyd National Center for Community Media and the National Newspaper Association Foundation in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Information: http://huckboyd.jmc.ksu.edu/symposium/papers.html

October 25-27, 2006
World Congress on Communication for Development in Rome, Italy. Organized by the Development Communication Division, World Bank; Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; and The Communication Initiative.
Information: http://www.devcomm-congress.org/worldbank/macro/2.asp

October 25-29, 2006
Annual conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists in Burlington, Vermont USA. Information: http://www.sej.org/confer/index1.htm

November 9-11, 2006
Fifth Conference of the Asian Federation for Information Technology in Agriculture. (AFITA) in Bangalore, India.
Information: http://www.insait.org/afita0.pdf

November 15-17, 2006
“Farm and rural horizons.” Annual convention of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting (NAFB) in Kansas City, Missouri USA.
Information: www.nafb.com

A closing note on dieting.

Why not have it all? We close this issue of ACDC News with a dieter’s dream, an oxymoronic observation from Arthur Baer:

“She used to diet on any kind of food she could lay her hands on.”

Please get in touch with us when you see in this collection interesting items you cannot find, locally or online.

Reach us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu. Tell us the titles and/or document numbers. We will help you gain access.

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 electronic form at docctr@library.uiuc.edu.

September 2006

ACDC News – Issue 06-17

Posted on January 1, 2006 by Elizabeth Ray

The rural roots of service journalism.

Recently we added to the ACDC collection an article that featured a pioneering U. S. agricultural publisher, Edwin T. Meredith. He founded Successful Farming (1902), still published today by Meredith Corporation, Des Moines, Iowa. He also served as U. S. Secretary of Agriculture.

According to author Gael L. Cooper, “Meredith’s primary legacy was in the field of journalism, where he gave force to a publishing concept now called “Service Journalism.”

Title: Edwin Thomas Meredith: service was his secret to magazine success

What keeps food companies from openly communicating?

Here is how e-version readers of the Food Systems Insider newsletter responded to that question:

Competition 31.8 percent Legal fears 18.2 percent
Accountability 4.5 percent All of the above 36.4 percent

This brief summary of the online survey includes a reader’s caution that times are changing. If the food company does not have a good story to tell about a product “someone will be willing to share the real story for you.”

Posted at http://www.foodsystemsinsider.com (E-newsletter issue of November 18, 2005 )

“A marketplace of misleading labels.”

Commentator Herb Weisbaum recently took after food marketers that use “misleading labels…to grab a shopper’s attention and move product.” Among the examples cited:

“Whole wheat” products with “very little whole wheat.”
A “peach papaya drink” that contains mostly water, sweeteners and some pear juice – no peach or papaya juice.
Create-your-own definitions of “natural” foods.
“Trans fat free,” easily interpreted to mean fat free.

Title: When grocery shopping, read the fine print
Posted at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12803309

Recognizing the pioneers and concepts of development communication.

Several journals recently published informative historical reviews of the discipline and practice of development communication. They describe six schools of thought about development communication, from the 1940s to date: Latin American, Bretton Woods, Los Baños, African, Indian and Post-Freire (Participatory). The articles also recognize pioneering contributions of Dr. Nora Quebral, University of the Philippines at Los Baños.

“CFSC pioneer: honouring Nora Quebral.”
Posted at http://www.communicationforsocialchange.org/mazi-articles.php?id=272

“Manifesto for development communication: Nora Quebral and the Los Baños School of development communication”

“Nora Cruz Quebral: writer and thinker par excellence” Posted at: http://webzone.k3.mah.se/projects/gt2/viewarticle.aspx?articleID=47&issueID=5

Thanks to a contributor in Australia.

ACDC staff recently added documents that focus on new food labeling policies in Australia and New Zealand. Our thanks go to Tanoj K. Singh, a research scientist for Food Science Australia.

Singh contributed a consumer brochure, “Country of Origin Food Labelling.” Published by Food Standards Australia New Zealand, it describes recent changes in rules for such labels. Also, a 2006 report on Australia’s dairy industry includes survey data showing that since 2004 producers have become more confident about the future of the industry.

Title: Country of origin food labelling
Posted at: http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/_srcfiles/CoOL_brochure_2006.pdf

Title: Dairy 2006, situation and outlook: report to the Australian dairy industry
Posted at: http://www.dairyaustralia.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=278&Itemid=1

We appreciate these contributions and welcome agricultural communications documents from any community or region.

Communicator activities approaching

October 1, 2006
Deadline for research or professional papers to be submitted to the Agricultural Communications section of the Southern Association of Agricultural Scientists meeting February 3-7, 2007, in Mobile, Alabama.
Information: contact@mail.ag-communicators.org

October 25-29, 2006
Annual conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists in Burlington, Vermont USA. Information: http://www.sej.org/confer/index1.htm

November 9-11, 2006
Fifth Conference of the Asian Federation for Information Technology in Agriculture. (AFITA) in Bangalore, India.
Information: http://www.insait.org/afita0.pdf

November 15-17, 2006
“Farm and rural horizons.” Annual convention of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting (NAFB) in Kansas City, Missouri USA.
Information: http://www.nafb.com

So you follow the classified ads?

In that case, we close this issue of ACDC News with several from the Advertisers’ Almanack, as reported in a 1908 issue of Agricultural Advertising magazine.

• For sale – Capes, victorines, etc., made up for ladies out of their own skins. • Wanted – A furnished room for a single gentleman looking both ways and well ventilated.
• For sale – A bulldog. Will eat anything. Very fond of children.

Please get in touch with us when you see in this collection interesting items you cannot find, locally or online.

Reach us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu. Tell us the titles and/or document numbers. We will help you gain access.

September 2006

ACDC News – Issue 06-16

Posted on January 1, 2006 by Elizabeth Ray

Sparks out of the plowed ground.

That title identifies the most ground-based book we have read about radio in the communities of rural America. Author Bob Doll, long-time publisher of the Small Market Radio Newsletter, brought 45 years of experience to this effort. Using statistics, dozens of station case reports and other sources, he:

Tracked the history of small-town radio – from unauthorized “Station BOB” in 1919 through a 1995 survey among owners about the future of their stations.
Analyzed trends and forces such as changing program formats, automation, regulation, emergence of FM, consolidation, and social and economic factors.
Identified elements of success and failure in small-market radio broadcasting.

Title: Sparks out of the plowed ground.

The difference between journalists and communicators for development.

Luis Ramiro Beltrán, a former journalist and pioneering development communicator in Latin America, recently described it this way:

“The main difference … is that the latter understand communication mainly as a tool for enhancing people’s education for the betterment of their lives. The main thrust of journalists is news, whereas the development communicator struggles for a change in behaviour, so people can succeed in overcoming underdevelopment, injustice and authoritarianism.”

Title: Interview with Luis Ramiro Beltrán
Posted at: http://www.communicationforsocialchange.org/dialogues.php?id=233

Welcome, Sara.

We are delighted to introduce Sara Thompson as new graduate assistant and coordinator in the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center. Sara’s experiences and interests will help her contribute in special ways to the mission of this Center.

She brings seven years of work experience in academic libraries as she enters the University of Illinois graduate program in library and information science.
An honors graduate of Eastern Oregon University, she joins us from the Oregon State University Valley Library, where she coordinated branch and distance education services. She also served as liaison to a lending and borrowing alliance of 30 academic libraries in Oregon and Washington.
Her earlier experience at Eastern Oregon University included a project that involved 70 rural libraries.
She studied abroad in Germany and has taken two years or more of coursework each in German, Spanish and French.

Thanks to another helpful collaborator.

We are grateful to an associate in Sudan who has alerted us to – and provided – some useful, timely documents. Thanks to Rafaa Ashamallah Ghobrial, Head of Information Services and Systems in the Documentation and Information Centre, Khartoum. A couple examples:

” Towards an agricultural information network in Sudan ”
Posted at: http://www.livelihoods.org/post/Docs/iaald/014Rafaa.doc

” Sudan agricultural information management system: challenges and opportunities”

Cautions about biases reflected in words we use.

Sometimes we are struck by the submerged messages and meanings in materials we read. The following examples from rural development documents reflect mindsets about producers and what they know:

“Farmers and experts talk about teleconferencing”
(Who are seen as holding the knowledge of most value in this exchange?)
“Peasant expertise and formal science”
(Which dimension of this duo is implied as most credible?)
“Farm scientists communicate to farmers”
(How much dialogue and sharing of insights is implied here?)
“Traditional knowledge”
(Sometimes used in ways that treat it as second-class knowledge, “fixed, mummified, and unfit for modern times”)
http://www.grain.org/jargon/?id=7

And submerged meanings in the biotech debate.

Along the same line, Guy Cook, professor of applied linguistics at the University of Reading, England, has analyzed discourse surrounding the international debate about agricultural biotechnology. His book is entitled:

Genetically modified language: the discourse of arguments for GM crops and food

Communicator activities approaching

September 14-17, 2006
Annual conference of the Canadian Farm Writers’ Federation in Winnipeg, Canada.
Information: http://www.cfwf.ca

October 8-11, 2006
“Delivering information for the new life sciences.” U.S. Agricultural Information Network conference at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
Information: http://usain.mannlib.cornell.edu

Communicating when times turn dry and desperate.

We close this issue of ACDC News with a few tales of life in rural America during the depression and drought years of the 1930s. These examples come from the Wessels Living History Farm, York, Nebraska.

Kansas farmers had to pay taxes in Texas because that was where their farms had blown.
Fish swam up stream and left a cloud of dust behind them.
One dust storm was so thick that a salesman saw a prairie dog 20 feet above ground digging frantically to get back to earth.
It got so hot that hens were laying hard boiled eggs.

Writer Bill Ganzel noted in presenting these examples:

“As Nebraska folklorist Roger Welsch has written, ‘Nowhere are water and life more appreciated than where they are a gift, not an assumption.’ When the gift doesn’t arrive, we turn to humor, ‘jokes that are not meant to bring forth laughter but give a common ground for the sufferers, jokes that blur the pain and sharpen the hope’.”

Reference: http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/water_09.html

Please get in touch with us when you see in this collection interesting items you cannot find, locally or online.

Reach us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu. Tell us the titles and/or document numbers. We will help you gain access.

August 2006

ACDC News – Issue 06-15

Posted on January 1, 2006 by Elizabeth Ray

Helping agricultural journalists work ethically.

A master’s thesis added recently to the ACDC collection reveals that Karen A. Simon has advanced recent discussions about how to preserve the ethical integrity of agricultural media in the U.S. Her thesis, submitted earlier this year, examined accountability systems “to put ‘teeth’ into the existing code of ethics” of the American Agricultural Editors’ Association.

She identified and discussed various media accountability systems, in terms of the agricultural publishing industry. Among her recommendations:

“We must begin now,” she said, noting a publisher’s comment that reversing breaches of ethics is extraordinarily difficult.
The entire editorial team should be taught the process of ethical decision-making.
“We must make a conscious effort to employ [accountability tools] industry wide. By forming a united front – reporters, editors, publishers and the sales force – we can preserve our integrity…and our readers’ trust.”

Title: Standing our ground
Note: This thesis is available in electronic or printed format (cost-recovery basis). Check with us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu.

What will it take to globalize extension services?

How can extension services provide leadership in the mounting challenge of demonstrating local implications and potential consequences of global interdependence? Here are barriers and needs identified by a recent survey among extension agents, specialists and administrators in Virginia Cooperative Extension (U.S.):

Lack of financial support.
Lack of programming priority.
Lack of time to devote to it.
Need for guidance on what a “globalized” program looks like, including specific ideas that extension personnel can put into their programs.
Need for specific training, such as foreign language competencies.

Findings revealed that 92 percent of the respondents were involved in international efforts within the past five years. As a group, respondents expressed positive attitudes toward globalizing the extension program in that state.

Title: The attitudes of extension faculty
Posted at: http://www.aiaee.org/2006/Accepted/380.pdf

Covering rural aspects of the complex U. S. immigration debate.

“There are a lot of different aspects to this issue – wages, fiscal costs, citizenship issues, security issues,” says Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies.

Krikorian’s research organization established the annual Katz Award for excellence in immigration coverage to honor journalists “who best challenge the norm of immigration reporting.” Recent award winners include Lou Dobbs, anchor and managing editor of CNN’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight.”

We recently added to the Center collection several documents that highlight media coverage and public opinion of the immigration debate as it touches on food and agriculture. “There is a steady and strong demand for migrant workers from Mexico in agriculture,” according to a 2005 survey by the Pew Hispanic Center.

Title: 2004 Eugene Katz Award for excellence in the coverage of immigration
Posted at: http://www.cis.org/articles/Katz/katz2004.html

Title: No consensus on immigration problem or proposed fixes: America’s immigration quandary
Posted at: http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/63.pdf

Communicator activities approaching

September 13-16, 2006
Annual conference of the Association of Food Journalists in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Information: http://www.afjonline.com

September 14-17, 2006
Annual conference of the Canadian Farm Writers’ Federation in Winnipeg, Canada.
Information: http://www.cfwf.ca

Thanks, Carolyn, and best wishes.

With this issue of ACDC News we extend sincere thanks and best wishes to Carolyn Sanford. She completed her graduate degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois in May and leaves the Center this month after a year of service as graduate assistant. Her new responsibilities as assistant director of the Learning Resources Center at Richland Community College, Decatur, Illinois, begin September 5.

Carolyn brought to the Center a background and interest in public affairs (media relations, writing and editing), librarianship, teaching and international affairs. She has contributed valuable leadership in identifying and processing documents, providing timely information services and strengthening the international, gender and other subject areas of this collection.

New words related to agriculture.

Thanks to Marilyn Cummins of Cummins Consulting for alerting us to the latest crop of new words in the 2006 update of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. This 11th edition contains several related to agriculture. Examples:

Avian influenza
Biodiesel
Agritourism
Aquascape

We would add Mouse Potato to the list, except that it refers not to a genetically engineered vegetable but to a person who spends a great deal of time using a computer.

Best regards and good searching.

Please get in touch with us when you see in this collection interesting items you cannot find, locally or online. Reach us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu. Tell us the titles and/or document numbers. We will help you gain access.

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 electronic form at docctr@library.uiuc.edu.

August 2006

ACDC News – Issue 06-14

Posted on January 1, 2006 by Elizabeth Ray

Here come rural stereotypes – by parachute journalism.

Recently we added to the ACDC collection a commentary about “parachute journalism.” This practice involves dispatching globe-trotting reporters and camera crews to cover the latest breaking news. Commentator Marjie Lundstrom examined the “damage wrought by regional stereotypes” and included instances of press crew forays into rural areas.

One example cited evidence of stereotyped coverage of political campaigning in the Iowa caucuses. “Iowa ‘s urban dwellers may wield the political clout in this state, but what readers and viewers generally get is a steady diet of cornfields, barns and hogs.”

Title: Parachute journalism
Posted at: http://www.poynter.org/content/content_print.asp?id=4682&custom

Mass media helping to build peace in times of rural conflict.

A recent addition to the ACDC collection featured examples of the humanitarian role of mass media in conflict. One case study involved a conflict between crop growers and herders in a region of Mali. A drought prompted herders to drive their animals across growers’ fields before crops had been harvested. Radio Duwanza staff members analyzed this conflict, then initiated a campaign that helped ease it. They:

Aired public service announcements reminding listeners of their traditional collaboration and advised restraint.
Reported incidents promptly to help keep conflicts from mushrooming.
Encouraged crop growers to use radio to inform listeners when the growers would be finished harvesting particular fields.

“What emerges here is the importance of the radio journalist’s local knowledge,” observed author Gordon Adams. “A key to a successful media intervention in conflict is understanding the complexities of the situation.” Such guidelines and potentials in occasions of conflict would seem relevant in any region or news medium.

Title: The humanitarian role of mass media in conflict
Posted at: http://webzone.k3.mah.se/projects/gt2/viewarticle.aspx?articleID=13&issueID=3

The U.S. Extension Service’s “gendered vision of modern agriculture.”

A thought-provoking analysis in Women’s Studies focused on “a cultural battle waged in the 1930s and 1940s over the future of rural America and its women folk.” On one level, researcher Margot Canaday analyzed the development, impact and demise of a rural women’s radio program, “We Say What We Think.” On another level, she examined a much broader issue.

“The Extension Service promoted the development of a mechanized, scientific, and capital-intensive agriculture,” she reported. However, it “faced an obstacle in the interdependent rural community, because farmers who were connected to their neighbors were unlikely to adopt the capital-intensive practices that inevitably pushed some farmers off the land. For modern agriculture to take hold, the ties that bound rural communities had to be severed.” From this perspective, she observed, women’s organizational skills made rural communities strong and threatened the Extension agenda for change in the countryside.

“In response, the Extension Service promoted domesticity to isolate women within the home, discourage women’s community-based political involvement, and thereby weaken the overall structure of the rural community. … Further, the discipline of Rural Sociology, a key ally for rural communities, was marginalized or co-opted within the academy.”

Title: We say what we think

They all learn the same … don’t they?

Not really, according to Mandi McLeod after analyzing the preferred learning styles of dairy farmers in New Zealand {NZ}.

“NZ dairy farmers can be segmented on the basis of their different learning style preferences and gender and/or position in the industry.”

Title: They all learn the same
Posted at: http://www.aiaee.org/2006/Accepted/414.pdf

Thoughts about embedding agricultural journalists.

We appreciate these thoughts in response to the recent article in ACDC News, “Embed journalists everywhere”:

“That, in my opinion, was the power of agricultural journalism in supporting the spread of science and technology in farming in the mid-20th century. Most of us had been embedded in the farming culture since birth. One difference might be that we were embedded in the culture rather than coming in embedded in the ‘occupying troops.’ But that was back then.”
Bob Kern, emeritus faculty member, Iowa State University

“There’s the concept of embedding. To me the concept implies ‘in bed with’ and the risk implies journalists are too close to the spheres {to use your term} they’re covering. On the potential side, embedding also produces striking reports of some touching examples of the Iraqi war, such as those dealing with hospital treatment of amputees and severe wounds. It brought tears to my eyes.”
Gary Reynolds, former editor, Prairie Farmer

Tempered excitement about ICTs in rural development.

The following headline of a 2005 article in the Journal of the Community Development Society catches your eye: “Do information communication technologies {ICTs} promote rural economic development?” You read the experiences of five U.S. rural communities that deployed ICT programs, then a wrap-up by researchers Kenneth E. Pigg and Laura D. Crank:

“… there is little evidence that telecommunications leads to economic growth or that businesses in the communities are using ICTs extensively.” Instead, “… the physical deployment of the hardware is not sufficient to achieve success.”

Title: Do information communication technologies promote rural economic development?

Communicator activities approaching

September 13-16, 2006
Annual conference of the Association of Food Journalists in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Information: http://www.afjonline.com

September 14-17, 2006
Annual conference of the Canadian Farm Writers’ Federation in Winnipeg, Canada.
Information: http://www.cfwf.ca

October 1, 2006
Deadline for research or professional papers to be submitted to the Agricultural Communications section of the Southern Association of Agricultural Scientists, which meets February 3-7, 2007, in Mobile, Alabama.
Information {E-mail}: contact@mail.ag-communicators.org

October 8-11, 2006
“Delivering information for the new life sciences.” Conference of the U.S. Agricultural Information Network (USAIN) at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
Information: http://usain.mannlib.cornell.edu

I like pigs.

Closing with this classic rural insight from Winston Churchill, we nod in sure agreement and remember pigs we have liked:

“I like pigs.
Dogs look up to us.
Cats look down on us.
Pigs treat us as equals.”

Best regards and good searching.

Let us know when you identify interesting items you cannot find, locally or online. Reach us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu. Tell us the titles and/or document numbers. We will help you gain access.

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, Urbana, IL 61801} or electronic form at docctr@library.uiuc.edu.

August, 2006

ACDC News – Issue 06-13

Posted on January 1, 2006 by Elizabeth Ray

Pursuing a global view of agricultural communicating.

You might like to know that June proved to be a decidedly “international” month in the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center. ACDC staff members added documents that involve agriculture-related communicating in more than 40 countries throughout the world.

Pay-off from visual aids on avian flu.

A case report in The Lancet revealed interesting communication experiences of a public health veterinarian during the 2004 avian flu outbreak in Laos. While discussing this threat with veterinary officials and administrators of a provincial hospital, visiting veterinarian Clara J. Witt observed:

“People were very polite, but did not seem that interested until I showed them … pictures of affected chickens. This use of visual aids paid off. … Pictures allowed them to appreciate that H5N1 could, and did, affect them.”

Title: Experience of the spring 2004 avian influenza outbreak in Laos

Nervous about it.

Results of a national survey during late April among U.S. residents reflected signs of nervousness about avian flu. Sixty-one percent of those surveyed in an Associated Press poll by Ipsos Public Affairs considered it somewhat or very likely that bird flu will spread to birds in the United States in the next 12 months. Also:

• One-third (34 percent) said they were somewhat or very concerned that they, or someone in their immediate family, might catch the bird flu.
• More than half (53 percent) said they believed they were somewhat or very likely to die from bird flu if they got it.
• More than one-half (52 percent) said they were not confident in the federal government’s ability to handle an outbreak of bird flu among humans in the United States.

Title: AP/Ipsos Poll: shaky confidence
Posted at: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20060421-0841-birdflu-appoll.html

Myths, principles and practices of health risk communicating.

A concise, 26-page primer on health risk communication came out recently from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Prepared by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, the report features these major sections:

Role and importance of community involvement;
Overview of issues and guiding principles for health risk communication;
Presenting information at public meetings;
Working with the media; and
References.

Title: A primer on health risk communication
Posted at: http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/HEC/primer.html

Research papers from the 2006 ACE conference.

We are pleased to help announce nine new agricultural communication research papers. They were presented at the international conference of the Association for Communication Excellence in Agriculture, Natural Resources and Life and Human Sciences (ACE). Members of the Research Special Interest Group presented them June 2 in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. Check with the contact persons if you are interested in copies or details.

“Cognitive and affective response by Lubbock Chamber of Commerce affiliates to agricultural news.” Meredith Campbell, Chad S. Davis, Cindy Akers, David Doerfert and Steve Fraze, Texas Tech University. Contact: meredith.campbell@ttu.edu.

“Golden rice: Promise or peril? The view from Philippine farmers.” Shalom Mula, Iowa State University. Contact: shalom@iastate.edu.

“Initial exploration of the Texas print newspaper media’s utilization patterns of an agricultural media resource guide.” Jessica Hein, Cindy Akers, David L. Doerfert and Chad S. Davis, Texas Tech University.
Contact: cindy.akers@ttu.edu.

“Organizational gatekeeper or peacekeeper: The agenda-building efforts of agricultural communication professionals.” Amanda M. Ruth, College of Charleston
Contact: rutha@cofc.edu.

“Are we listening? Assessing the potential of extension to utilize mass media to convey consumer-oriented home horticulture information to non-traditional audiences.” Tracy Irani, Courtney Meyers and Erin Eckhardt, University of Florida
Contact: irani@ufl.edu.

“Agriculture and entertainment media: A qualitative study of the impact of entertainment media on perceptions of agriculture.” Lisa K. Lundy, Louisiana State University, and Amanda M. Ruth, College of Charleston. Contact: llundy@lsu.edu.

“Application of the elaboration likelihood model to the design of genetically modified food labels.” Courtney A. Meyers, University of Florida, and Jefferson D. Miller, University of Arkansas.
Contact: cameyers@ifas.ufl.edu.

“Building public trust: extension messages communicated during the 2004 Florida hurricane season.” Melissa Muegge, Ricky Telg, Tracy Irani, Mark Kistler and Nick Place, University of Florida.
Contact: mmuegge@allflexusa.com.

“Framing in print: news coverage of three poultry meat recalls.” Sarah Heuer and Jefferson D. Miller, University of Arkansas.
Contact: sheuer@uark.edu.

Abstracts of these and six alternative research papers are posted at: www.aceweb.org/sigs/research/resources/ace2006abstracts.pdf.

How rural children use ICT – a surprise for parents and teachers.

A study reported in the Journal of Rural Studies revealed some surprises about how rural children in a United Kingdom community use information and communication technologies (ICT). For example:

• Adults (notably parents and teachers) involved in the study reflected an “adultist, macro and future oriented vision” of ICT for children. They envisioned ICT as having the potential to enable rural children to overcome their spatial isolation and “extend their knowledge terrain beyond the boundaries of the place where they live.”

• However, researchers found that youngsters (ages 11-16) in the study used these technologies in more “everyday and mundane ways.” They enjoyed using the Web to access information about celebrities, sports and fashion. They used online forms of communicating to focus “on the nitty-gritty social relations and activities of everyday life.”

Title: A window on the wider world?

Grateful to the government market news reporters.

Rob Murphy of Informa Economics, Inc., expressed thanks early this year to public-supported market news reporters in the U.S. Department of Agriculture {USDA}. He applauded their efforts in covering livestock and meat markets and making data available to users. Speaking at the USDA Agricultural Outlook Forum, Murphy described how private market analysts use such reports to help clients make short- and long-term decisions. He described specific applications such as price forecasting, benchmarking, volume analysis and demand analysis.

Title: How private market analysts use market news
Posted at: http://www.usda.gov/oce/forum/2006%20Speeches/PDF%20speech%20docs/Murphy2806.pdf

Signs of need for better writing skills.

Findings reported recently in the Journal of Agricultural Education pointed to a substantial need for greater writing competencies among graduate students in agricultural education.

Researchers found that “93 percent of graduate students in this sample were unable to demonstrate complete proficiency in writing.” Sixty percent of the students had “inadequate” writing skills. Only 41 percent demonstrated “adequate writing ability.”

Title: Authenticated writing competencies of agricultural education graduate students

Lively ways of saying things.

Our review of documents for the ACDC collection exposes us to some lively ways of expressing ideas. Here is a recent example that caught our eye:

“…a toothless, truncated document, scattered with beautiful words.” Describing the outcome of an international meeting on plant genetic resources. See page 5 at http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=196

Please let us know when you see (or discover your own) creative, lively ways of saying things about agriculture, food, fiber, natural resources and rural matters in general.

Best regards and good searching.

Also, get in touch with us when you identify interesting items you cannot find, locally or online. Reach us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu.Tell us the titles and/or document numbers. We will help you gain access.

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, Urbana, IL 61801} or electronic form at docctr@library.uiuc.edu.

July, 2006

ACDC News – Issue 06-12

Posted on January 1, 2006 by Elizabeth Ray

Color me spoiled.

A news report we have added to the ACDC collection describes new food labels that change color to signal the freshness of packaged meat in the local supermarket. Food Quality Sensor International Inc. is reported to be testing these labels in California and Nebraska. On average, they add a penny to the packaging costs for each dollar of meat sold.

Title: Food label would bypass sniff test

Advertising in rural India

Is the title of a book reviewed in a 2002 issue of the Language journal. We do not have this book as yet, but we have entered a book review by Edwin Battistella. He concluded that the book would interest readers “who are curious about how communication and language work in the marketplace and how marketing affects linguistic and social structure.”

“It is likely there is a book to be written about language and rural advertising in the United States as well,” Battistella observed. We suspect the idea could also apply usefully to many countries.

Title: Advertising in rural India

Development journalism – an oxymoron.

“Developing countries need good journalism and good journalists, period,” according to the communications director of the International Development Research Centre. Jean-Marc Fleury argued in a report we added recently:

“Development, after all, is not something thrust upon people, but a process in which people engage, in which they are both actors and beneficiaries. For people to act effectively, they must be informed. And that is the role of media and journalists in both developed and developing worlds. This, however, is not what some are calling ‘development journalism.'”

Fleury called for: (a) better training of journalists for this challenge and (b) greater effort to make the results of developing country research better known around the world. We in the Center share the goal of helping address both those needs.

Title: Development journalism or just good journalism
Posted at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/trust/2015/story/2004/06/printable/040609_jean_marc_fleury.shtml

Embed journalists everywhere.

“Embed them where people live, work, play, and pray,” Aly Colón argued in Poynteronline. “Embed them in neighborhoods, urban areas, rural areas, corporations, nonprofits, hospitals, families, retirement communities, conservative centers and liberal lodges.” What does the author think might happen?

• It would reframe the way journalists gather information and tell their stories.
• Journalists would gain more intimate knowledge by focusing on the personal, ordinary, everyday experiences of those they observe.
• They would craft stories in which persons portrayed would recognize themselves and the situations depicted.

Could it be said that specialized reporters, such as agricultural journalists, already are embedded in the spheres they cover? Could they use that concept more fully? What risks and potentials are involved?

Title: Embed journalists everywhere
Posted at: http://www.poynter.org/content/content_print.asp?id=25265

Communications and the three faces of science fraud.

One can see the role of communications in three “faces of science fraud” described by David Schubert of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. His commentary in the San Diego Union-Tribune examined the creation or manipulation of data to achieve specific ends related to biotechnology and other scientific endeavors. The three faces he identified:

Increasing pressure on politicians and regulatory agencies to reduce regulatory requirements.
Companies employing their own scientists to publish manuscripts in an attempt to discredit the consensus of scientists and feed public relations campaigns.
Regulatory agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration “forced to bend the facts of science to fit the political agenda” of the day.

Title: Three faces of science fraud
Posted at: http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060216/news_lz1e16schuber.html

The Internet – “a weapon on the table” for “biotech war.”

“Either you pick it up or your competitor does, but somebody is going to get killed,” according to an agri-marketing source cited in a 2002 Guardian Unlimited (UK) commentary. George Monbiot described successful efforts by Monsanto to position biotechnology more positively on the Internet.

Title: Covert biotech war
Posted at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,842999,00.html

Yes, we are still searching off the beaten paths.

The wide-ranging sources of information about agriculture-related communicating continue to surprise, impress and challenge us. For example, here are a few off-the-main-path journals where we found such literature during recent weeks:

Clinical Pediatrics
Health Libraries Review
American Ethnologist
Federal Communications Law Journal
Women’s Studies
Management Quarterly
Journal of Clinical Epidemiology
Action Research
Language

Communicator activities approaching

July 23-26, 2006
“Meet us at the Summit.” Agricultural Media Summit, a joint meeting of American Agricultural Editors’ Association (AAEA), Livestock Publications Council (LPC), ABM Agri-Council, Agricultural Communicators of Tomorrow (ACT) and Agricultural Relations Council (ARC) in Portland, Oregon.
Information: http://www.agmediasummit.com

August 12-16, 2006
“Feed your Senses.” Fiftieth Anniversary Congress of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) in Hamar, Norway.
Information: http://www.ifaj2006.com

August 24-26, 2006
49th Annual Conference of the National Market News Association in Chicago, Illinois.
Information: http://www.ams.usda.gov/nmna

September 13-16, 2006
Annual conference of the Association of Food Journalists in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Information: http://www.afjonline.com

September 14-17, 2006
Annual conference of the Canadian Farm Writers’ Federation in Winnipeg, Canada.
Information: http://www.cfwf.ca

A panda’s punctuation lesson.

We close this issue of ACDC News with a punctuation lesson, a tip of the hat to grammarians among us. It comes from the newsletter of the European Federation for Information Technology in Agriculture, Food and the Environment (EFITA).

A panda enters a restaurant. He orders a chef salad and eats it. Then he gets a gun from his bag, shoots all the lights out and leaves the place dark. He gets arrested and during his trial the judge asks the obvious question: “Why did you do this?” The panda presents a dictionary and shows this explanation of his kind: “Big mammal living in Southern China. Eats, shoots and leaves.”

This little tale echoes a recent book – Eats, Shoots and Leaves – by Lynne Truss. It emphasizes the importance of punctuation.

Best regards and good searching.

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

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, Urbana, IL 61801] or electronic form at docctr@library.uiuc.edu.

July, 2006

ACDC News – Issue 06-11

Posted on January 1, 2006 by Elizabeth Ray

New education partnership to benefit IFAJ members.

We are most pleased to announce a new pilot project that involves the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) and the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC). Plans for this partnership have taken form during the past year.

Several new efforts are designed to expand professional development opportunities and resources for IFAJ members. They began during May:

Center staff members are providing news and how-to features for issues of IFAJ E-News and the professional development section of the IFAJ Web site.
New IFAJ pages on the Center Web site offer tips for finding information that is especially useful to agricultural journalists.
IFAJ is forming an ad-hoc advisory committee to strengthen the Center by helping identify useful agricultural journalism literature being generated throughout the world.

Special thanks to David Markey, President; Owen Roberts, Vice President for Professional Development and Education; and other members of the IFAJ Executive for helping envision and initiate this pilot effort. At the Center, Joe Zumalt, Jim Evans and others are assembling and providing information to serve IFAJ members.

IFAJ web site: www.ifaj.org

Rural small businesses not benefiting fully from broadband services.

A speaker at the 2006 Agriculture Outlook Conference, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, cited evidence of this gap. Stephen B. Pociask of TeleNomic Research concluded that, “compared to their urban counterparts, rural small businesses are not seeing the benefits resulting from the investment and use of broadband services.” He also presented evidence that consumers in rural areas have fewer choices among broadband providers, “confirming the existence of a rural digital divide.”

Title: Broadband use by rural small businesses
Posted at: http://www.usda.gov/oce/forum/2006%20Speeches/PDF%20speech%20docs/Pociask2706.pdf

The cell phone — “real bridge across the digital divide.”

We have added to the ACDC collection an article from OneWorld South Asia about benefits that cell phones can offer rural residents in that region. Author Swaminathan A. Aiyar suggested, “I believe that the cell phone, not the computer, will be the real bridge across the digital divide.” His reasons? It does not require continuous power. It costs a “tiny fraction” of what computers cost. It provides access to the Internet. And the cost of calls “has crashed.”

Aiyar cited results of a research project in which Kerala fishermen used cell phones to reduce volatility of fish prices, eliminate wasted catch, and increase their incomes as well as the incomes of merchants with whom they traded. Consumers benefited through reduced prices as the waste ended.

Title: Cellphones bridge the digital divide
Posted at: http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/128332/1/

Frank discussions with Wal-Mart.

Thanks to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues for reporting on a session involving Wal-Mart executives at the 2005 convention of the National Newspaper Association [NNA] in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Here are some of the concerns expressed by small-town newspaper representatives at the session:

The company buys relatively little newspaper advertising.
It puts out of business the local firms that formed the retail and advertising bases of small communities.
It replaces retailers who supported youth, educational, civic and church programs. “We don’t see that coming back from Wal-Mart to our communities.”

About 2,500 newspapers, mostly weeklies, make up the NNA membership. A 2005 survey of members “found that 87 percent had a Wal-Mart in their coverage area, and 67 percent said the presence of the company had a negative impact on their paper.”

Title: Small-town newspaper folks have frank discussions
Posted at: http://www.uky.edu/CommInfoStudies/irjci/nnawal-mart.htm

An early online agricultural information service.

Would you believe it existed 94 years ago? We have added to the ACDC collection a Hartford Courant article of February 1912, entitled “The ‘Phone in the Farmhouse.” This article described a circular published by the British post office and addressed to farmers. It pointed out that if at least five subscribers living on or near a country road leading to a town with a telephone exchange would agree to use one line, “they can telephone as much as they please to people on that exchange.” The circular emphasized these advantages to the farmer:

Latest market information for best advantage in the sale of produce and stock;
Weather reports and forecasts;
Arrangements with the railway station for delivery of goods;
Telegrams sent without going or sending to the post office;
Accelerated cooperative sale movements among farmers; and
Fewer long and expensive journeys.

The cost? £3 [$14.60] a year.

Title: The ‘phone in the farmhouse

Environmental journalism meets development journalism.

Two streams of journalism are coming together and have much to learn from each other, according to Guy Gough Berger of Rhodes University in South Africa. His 13-page report in Intermedia examined the roots of these two streams, the styles of each and ways they can enrich each other.

“The point argued in this article is that the convergence of environmentalism and developmentalism underlines a beneficial exchange of media traditions and insights. Going further, it also gives weight to the importance of reporting environmental stories as being simultaneously development ones, and to development stories as having environmental significance.”

Title: All change: environmental journalism meets development
Posted at: http://www.iicom.org/intermedia/Dec02/berger.html

Communicator activities approaching

July 17-18, 2006
“Ready, Set, Plan.” Crisis response workshop in Kansas City, Missouri. For organization administrators, communicators and others interested in executing functional risk and crisis responses. Sponsored by USDA-CSREES, Extension Disaster Education Network, K-State Research and Extension, and National Center of Food Protection and Defense.
Information: http://www.communications.ksu.edu/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=706

July 23-26, 2006
“Meet us at the Summit.” Agricultural Media Summit, a joint meeting of American Agricultural Editors’ Association [AAEA], Livestock Publications Council [LPC], ABM Agri-Council, Agricultural Communicators of Tomorrow [ACT], and Agricultural Relations Council [ARC] in Portland, Oregon.
Information: http://www.agmediasummit.com

August 12-16, 2006
“Feed your Senses.” Fiftieth Anniversary Congress of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) in Hamar, Norway.
Information: http://www.ifaj2006.com

Concerns about sheep advertising.

The advertising industry of the Netherlands is turning sheepish, according to a New York Times report by Doreen Carvajal. It seems an online reservations company is displaying its corporate logo on blankets worn by sheep along highways. Company sales and Web site visits have increased, according to the report. However, at least one town is fining the company “because advertising on livestock violates its ban on advertising along highways.”
Title: Baa code the sheep of things to come?
Posted at: http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/baa-code-the-sheep-of-things-to-come/2006/04/24/1145861285790.html#

Best regards and good searching.

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

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, Urbana, IL 61801] or electronic form at docctr@library.uiuc.edu.

June, 2006

ACDC News – Issue 06-10

Posted on January 1, 2006 by Elizabeth Ray

Making connections when animal disease crises hit.

A recent exercise simulating an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Ontario, Canada, revealed “a lot of tactical issues to address.” According to a news report we have added to the ACDC collection, this fictitious outbreak took place in real time between December 11 and 14. It began at a dairy farm, then spread to veal operations located elsewhere. Results suggested:

Producer groups knew their members and could communicate with them effectively.
However, “non supply-managed groups do not have organizations which represent all members of their industry and have little legislated authority in a crisis.”

A call for coordinated communications was among the recommendations offered.

Title: Are our farms ready for major outbreak?
Posted at: http://archives.foodsafetynetwork.ca/animalnet/2006/4-2006/animalnet_april_9.htm

“Good communication is as important as good science.”

That perspective came from a public health practice work group of the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. A 19-page report offered specific strategies for risk communicating. The strategies involved hazards of pesticide misapplications and seem appropriate, as well, for other kinds of risk to human health and well-being.

Title: Health education and risk communication strategies
Posted at: http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/hec/mpan2.html

Welcome to development journalists in Nepal.

We are pleased to send issues of ACDC News to members of the Forum of Development Journalists (FODEJ), a network of development journalists in Nepal. These journalists from print and broadcast media formed about four years ago, according to President Arjun Bhattarai.

“We feel serious need for one strong and registered alliance for development and investigation reporting to uplift Nepali people towards poverty alleviation. … We believe media can play a strategic role. …”

ACDC has a substantial body of information about journalism and communications, as related to agricultural and rural development. We look forward to helping support the efforts of FODEJ.

Contact: fodejnepal@gmail.com
Related title: Development journalism greater priority needed

Americans worried most about water pollution.

When it comes to environmental issues facing the United States in 2006, Americans express the greatest concern about issues related to water pollution. A Gallup Poll conducted during mid-March revealed that a majority said they worry a great deal about pollution of drinking water (54 percent), contamination of soil and water by toxic waste (52 percent), and pollution of rivers, lakes and reservoirs (51 percent). These concerns obviously hold implications for farmers, ranchers and others in the food complex.

Title: Water pollution tops environmental concerns
Available online to Gallup Poll on Demand subscribers at: http://poll.gallup.com/content/default.aspx?ci=22492&pg=1

Connecting Japanese food producers and consumers through civic journalism.

Writing in Japan Media Review, Kate Parry said her visit to Japan revealed “extraordinary examples of civic journalism already under way in Japan.” This style of journalism involves media both in covering news and encouraging civic engagement.

Agriculture-related civic journalism appeared among the examples Parry cited. Investigation by a newspaper, The Kahoku Shimpo, revealed widespread use of unregistered chemicals, even on “organic” farms. The paper established an online “Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Research Lab” as a virtual think tank to tackle the problem in a way that included the voices of producers and consumers.

“The idea of connecting producers and consumers through civic journalism has become a standard approach to agriculture coverage in the Tohoku farming region.”

Title: Civic journalism gains momentum
Posted at: http://ojr.org/japan/media/1077241122.php

Why cities care about the future of rural governance.

James Hunt, president of the National League of Cities, offered reasons such as these during the 2006 Agricultural Outlook Forum sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture:

There is no longer a homogeneous definition of rural.
There are many new faces in rural America. Seven out of 10 rural counties are dominated by manufacturing, health care, education, retail or other employment not related to farming.
In the new economy, many different types of governing bodies oversee needs in rural communities.

“To truly be the new face of Rural America, we must set turf battles aside,” Hunt urged, “and create new ways of reaching decisions that allow all the various leaders to make decisions quickly and efficiently for the sake of their communities.”

Title: Why cities care about the future of rural governance
Posted at: http://www.usda.gov/oce/forum/2006%20Speeches/PDF%20speech%20docs/Hunt228.pdf

Communicator activities approaching

June 13, 2006
“Getting the word out. Are we communicating effectively?” A food safety communicators conference hosted by the Food Safety Network at the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada.
Information: http://www.foodsafetynetwork.ca/en/article-details.php?a=3&c=32&sc=419&id=874

June 17-20, 2006
“Brewing success.” 2006 Institute of the Cooperative Communicators Association (CCA) in Portland, Oregon.
Information: http://www.communicators.coop

June 19-23, 2006
“Networking communication research.” Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA) in Dresden, Germany.
Information: http://www.icahdq.org/events/conference/2006/conf2006_program.asp

August 12-16, 2006
“Feed your senses.” Fiftieth anniversary Congress of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) in Hamar, Norway.
Information: www.ifaj2006.com

Do corn plants cry for help?

Talking plants have seldom fit our mental image of agricultural communicating. However, we have added to the ACDC collection an ear-opening example. Researchers at the Max Planck Society in Germany have “identified a gene which produces a chemical ‘cry for help’ that attracts beneficial insects to damaged plants.” It seems corn plants, when attacked by certain pests, emit a “cocktail of scents” to attract parasitic wasps that lay eggs on the pests. Offspring of the wasps then feed on the caterpillars and relieve the corn plants.

Title: Corn cries for help when attacked
Posted at: http://archives.foodsafetynetwork.ca/agnet/2006/1-2006/agnet_jan_17.htm#story0

Best regards and good searching.

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

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, Urbana, IL 61801) or electronic form at docctr@library.uiuc.edu.

June, 2006

ACDC News – Issue 06-09

Posted on January 1, 2006 by Elizabeth Ray

Effects of a rural newspaper revolution.

Media South Asia has published a two-part series about the impacts of recent efforts by some newspapers in India to generate more local news through district editions.

“By increasing distribution centres, using an improved road network to reach newspapers further into the hinterland by early morning, and hiring stringers to send news from very local centres for separate district pages, publishers are making an aggressive push to increase their circulation.”

You can learn from these reports about the techniques used and impacts observed among rural families and communities.

Title: Does the rural newspaper revolution promote development? Part I
Posted at: http://www.thehoot.org/story.asp?storyid=Web210214207141Hoot94627%20PM1365&pn=1&section=S13#

Title: Does the rural newspaper revolution promote development? Part II
Posted at:
http://www.thehoot.org/story.asp?storyid=Web61952349Hoot41830%20PM1375&pn=1&section=S13

New communication initiatives in peri-urban agriculture.

Thanks to Harsoyo Oedijono, an agricultural communications faculty member at Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia, for alerting us to recent networking initiatives involving peri-urban agriculture. Connections between urban and rural sectors of all nations call for more attention. The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and other development agencies are taking active steps to address nutritional, health, environmental and other urgent issues at the rural-urban interface of societies. According to CGIAR, “Urban agriculture is far more than farms or gardens in an urban environment. Urban agriculture includes livestock raising, water management, and organic waste management.”
For example: http://www.cipotato.org/urbanharvest/home/about_ua.htm

An information network, Peri Urban Development in South East Asia (PUDSEA), was established in 2001 to involve several Asian and European universities in such an effort.
Information: http://www.pudsea.net

Effective communication will be a key to the success of such endeavors and we wish to actively scout for information to address that challenge. Can you help? Please call our attention to documents about the communication aspects of urban and peri-urban agriculture.

Water music: a multimedia environmental message.

A creative approach to public education about protecting the Earth’s waters has taken shape through the efforts of art and magazine photographer Marjorie Ryerson and associates. Her book, Water Music, features 100 of her water photos, accompanied by “the writings and musical contributions of 66 world renowned musicians, who have creatively responded to the meaning and value of water in their lives.”

All net royalties go to the Water Music Fund of the United Nations Foundation. In addition, a larger Water Music Project – involving concerts, lectures, educational programs and other events – will add revenue to the Fund.

For consideration: What new and creative multimedia approaches to public education might highlight important dimensions of food and agriculture?

Title: Water music
Posted at: http://www.water-music.org

How consumers view the globalization of food.

We have added to the ACDC collection a Journal of Food Distribution Research article featuring results of two U.S. consumer surveys, one in South Carolina and one nationwide. Questions covered aspects such as:

What words consumers associate with “globalization”
How globalization has affected their personal lives and communities
Their comparative views about seven attributes of domestic and imported foods
Foods for which they are willing to pay more, in terms of production practices and location of production
Safety of various kinds of food
Their opinions about genetically modified crops and foods
Trustworthiness of nine sources of information about the safety of food

Title: The globalization of food
Posted at: http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=17261&ftype=.pdf

Topics seldom addressed in the U.S. farm press?

Al Tompkins, columnist for Poyteronline, (published by the Poynter Institute) has addressed several of such topics during the past year or so. Here are three of his columns we added recently to the ACDC collection:

Title: Rural areas still pay highest price in Iraq war
Posted at: http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=85646

Title: Farmers and suicide
Posted at: http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=73331

Title: Fraud on the farm
Posted at: http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=92354

Bookings close May 31 for this year’s 50th anniversary congress of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ).

It takes place in Norway during August 12-16, using the theme “Feed Your Senses.” The congress will be held at Hamar, one of Norway ‘s most versatile farming regions, a short drive from picturesque mountain ranges and valleys. The program includes briefing sessions on agricultural and trade issues; excursions looking at dairying, pig production, culture and food, forestry, science/biotech and horticulture; and professional development seminars. Both pre- and post- congress tour packages are also available. For more information and to register, visit www.ifaj2006.com.

Communicator activities approaching

June 2-6, 2006
“Excellence en communications.” International conference of the Association for Communication Excellence in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Life and Human Sciences (ACE), in Quebec, Ontario, Canada.
Information: http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/ace2006/

June 13, 2006
“Getting the word out. Are we communicating effectively?” A food safety communicators conference hosted by the Food Safety Network at the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada.
Information:
http://www.foodsafetynetwork.ca/en/article-details.php?a=3&c=32&sc=419&id=874

June 17-20, 2006
“Brewing success.” 2006 Institute of the Cooperative Communicators Association (CCA) in Portland, Oregon.
Information: http://www.communicators.coop

An egg poem.

We close this issue of ACDC News with a poem contributed to Farm Journal magazine by “A. L. B.” in 1914. You may notice how little the egg prices to producers have increased during these past 92 years.

The eggs my hens do lay each day
Are as a heap of coins to me;
I count them every one apart,
My treasury, my treasury.

Each egg four cents – four cents in cash –
To fill a purse long since wrung dry;
I count each egg within each nest
And pray the price keep high.

O pullets dear that cluck and lay!
O fat old hens with yellow legs!
I stroke your plumes, barred, white and gray,
And sell your eggs, dear hens –
And sell your eggs.

Title: An egg poem

Best regards and good searching.

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

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, Urbana, IL 61801) or electronic form at docctr@library.uiuc.edu.

May, 2006