Posts Tagged: social media

Extension in the information age

Interesting article this weekend on the UC ANR homepage concerning extension in the information age.

http://ucanr.edu/?blogpost=15394&blogasset=52096

More on this at a later date, but this article covers neatly some of the thoughts I've had on how we at UCCE are using the web to extend and enhance our ability to serve. 

It's a little wonkish, so I'll summarize the key takeaways here:

• Knowledge and information is produced and distributed by a network of people, not an individual. I can't any imagine any scientist being very successful in our industry working on his or her own these days, it's a given to bring representatives from all sorts of disciplines into a project, and then growers participate to keep things realistic and practical.  

• Interesting note that partnerships can form across agricultural sectors, I would have to agree.  Information flows pretty readily between our strawberry and caneberry industries, and I like to think that we have a decent connection with the lettuce and cool season vegetable industry.  

• Last but not least, online information technologies can be innovative ways to connect and learn, but will never be a substitute for personal and in-person connections. In my opinion, an Advisor will not thrive simply by writing blogs and posting on social media.  My experience is that these technologies enhance and enrich the work I am doing, but of course will never ever substitute for time in the field with the people we are here to serve.  

Good article, it looks like the research is confirming what we are realizing in the field.

 

 

 

Does social media reveal how we feel about cattle grazing?

How do people really feel about cattle grazing on public lands? According to a study of comments on social media, park users don't feel as strongly as one might surmise from attending a public hearing about cattle grazing in parks.

To get a more complete picture of public perceptions of cattle grazing, Sheila Barry, University of California Cooperative Extension advisor in the San Francisco Bay Area, analyzed photos and comments in the photo-sharing website Flickr.

Her study, published in the February 2014 issue of Environmental Management, showed that Flickr can provide insight both through photos and comments into public perspectives on grazing in parks and open space lands.

“These are just a first step toward broadening this understanding,” Barry wrote. “Further analysis of social media may provide managers with broader insights into public opinion compared to those afforded by traditional methods on a wide range of issues important to park and open space management.” Livestock grazing reduces the volume of plants that can fuel fire and improves wildlife habitat. But some public land managers, concerned about potential conflicts with park users, limit or ban grazing. In 2009, the city of Walnut Creek decided to end grazing in two city parks. A year later, neighbors who were concerned about weeds contributing to wildfire petitioned the city to resume cattle grazing.

Assessments of public perceptions are often based on public hearings, which tend to attract special interests and favor negative input, or on surveys, which focus on a topic.

“Despite numerous studies that have shown benefits of grazing for endangered species in California, some environmental groups and park users have filed lawsuits to curtail grazing on public rangelands,” Barry said. “I think there's an opportunity to educate people that if grazing is well managed, it won't interfere with their recreational use and there are benefits to society.”

The San Francisco Bay Area has over 133,000 acres of public land that is grazed by cattle and used by people to hike, ride bikes, walk dogs, ride horses and hang glide.

Barry set out to explore how people voluntarily described their feelings about cattle grazing in the San Francisco Bay Area on social media. She examined photos and comments on Flickr. Using the search terms “cow,” “cows” and “grazing,” she found 1,087 photos of grazed regional parks in Alameda, Contra Costa or Santa Clara counties by 328 people with 956 comments.

Of the 733 photos that were accompanied by comments, 71 percent showed a cow and 71 percent of the comments were descriptive without expressing opinion about cows or grazing. Comments included “Lots of wildflowers and cows. Hello tiny cows on the hillside.” “Taken at Lake Del Valle.” “I don't know why, but I thought cows in California were kept indoors.” About 23 percent were positive toward cows and grazing, such as “Wonderful to see cows being just cows and happy ones” and “As much as I struggled over the steep hills on this hike, all the grazing cattle and howling coyotes made it worth the sweat.”

Less than 2 percent of comments were negative toward cows or grazing, but included, “It's a little anti-climactic when you hike uphill for 2 h [sic] and see a herd of cows upon arrival.”

Fear of cows was expressed by 5 percent of commenters and included comments such as “I try to conquer my fear of cows by photographing them,” “The cows scared us to death. I told them that I'm a vegetarian and they let me go” and “We turned around when we were faced with the option of having to walk right through a herd of cows.”

Less than 1 percent described cows behaving aggressively, such as “At least these cows didn't chase us like last week's did.”

Although more research is needed to learn how to collect, analyze and interpret data from social media, Barry believes it could be a valuable source for informing decisions about public policy.

Insight into public perceptions of cattle grazing will enable park managers to craft more effective education and interpretation messages about park use and management.

“We are currently using insight from this project to develop education and interpretative information and panels for parks in the East Bay,” Barry said.

Barry is publishing fact sheets for park managers and interpreters to share with park visitors. The fact sheets will address concerns she saw raised in the Flickr study such as how to safely and comfortably recreate in a park near grazing cattle and the benefits of cattle grazing in parks. She will also address public interest and questions revealed in the Flickr study with facts sheets titled “A Year in the Life” and “Bovines, Ovines, Caprines and Equines: What's the difference?”  The fact sheets will also be available online and similar information will be posted in parks on interpretative panels.

The article “Using Social Media to Discover Public Values, Interests, and Perceptions about Cattle Grazing on Park Lands” can be downloaded at http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00267-013-0216-4.

One more way to 'know your farmer'

A ranch dog "friended" me on Facebook the other day. Yep, a dog on Facebook. To be specific, this is a working dog on a ranch that produces meat and sells it directly to consumers like me.

Apparently when Suki isn't herding cows at Scott River Ranch, she's surfing the web.

And exactly how is a ranch dog on Facebook related to food?

More and more people are interested in connecting with farmers and ranchers who produce the food we eat.

If you buy fresh produce at a farmers market, you can also ask farmers (or their employees) questions about which variety is ripest right now, how the produce was grown, how the meat was processed, and what the farm is like. Proactive eaters can sign up for CSA harvest boxes to receive seasonal produce, know exactly who is growing their food, and pledge support to a particular farm or group of farms. We can visit farms to participate in agritourism by buying from farm stands, taking ranch tours and even getting into the fields to harvest "U-pick" berries and other fruit.

"Local is hot" was on one of the opening slides of Kathleen Merrigan's presentation at UC Davis last week. The USDA's deputy secretary was visiting campuses to discuss the agency's "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food" campaign, which focuses on local and regional food system support.

Buying at farmers markets, subscribing to a CSA and visiting a farm are indeed ways to take part in local or regional food systems. But these activities are also about knowing your farmer — talking with him or her, visiting the land your dollar is supporting, and understanding how your food is grown.

And now we have another way to know a farmer, without even leaving the office: Anyone can like their favorite farmers on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, subscribe to their blogs, sign up for their email newsletters, and more.

Hearing about Suki the ranch dog's antics, with photos of her bathing in a water trough or videos of her chasing a field's pivot sprinklers, is another way for consumers to get a glimpse of ranch life from behind the scenes. Likewise, hearing from a farmer on Facebook about how today's rain might affect the cherry harvest is another way for me to feel connected with the farmer who is raising food I will soon be eating.

Chris Kerston of Chaffin Orchards put it this way: "If I'm walking along the field and I see a weird-looking bug, I'm going to stop, take a picture of it with my phone, put it on Facebook and ask 'Anyone know what this weird bug is?' ... It's just another way for people to see what it's like out on the farm."

Don't take it just from me: National companies are taking notice too. This month the editorial board of The Packer, a newspaper that specializes in the fresh produce industry, suggested that local is also about something else:

"While some national suppliers may look skeptically at the buy local trend, a component of local is consumers’ need to connect with where their food comes from.

"Social media is often the solution."

You can connect with the farmers and ranchers who produce your food — whether you buy it at a farmers market or in a supermarket — and receive updates from the farm or ranch through social media.

You can start by asking your favorite farmers or ranchers if they're on Facebook, and here are a few other networks for finding farmers online:

• Know A California Farmer is a website that shares updates, blog posts and videos from participating farmers and ranchers.
• Find farms near you with the Local Harvest directory and see if they are online too.
• I also maintain a list of California farmers and ranchers on Twitter.

Join the discussion: So, what would you like to know from the people who grow and raise the food you eat?

 

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Bonus video: Connecting with social media goes both ways; farmers want to connect with consumers who buy and eat their products. Staff and academics with UC Cooperative Extension and UC Davis have offered social media workshops to help farmers connect with consumers online (next one for me will be in Marin County, June 1). Here's a video after one UC workshop a few months ago:

Some farmers are getting into social media

The Fresno Bee reported this morning that farmers are beginning to use social media to communicate with each other and with consumers. The story opens with Kings County dairy operator Barbara Martin, who films herself with a hand-held video camera out on the dairy and posts her messages regularly on a blog, "A Dairy Goddess."

Reporter Robert Rodriguez wrote that Martin writes the blog to dispel myths about farmers and encourage a greater understanding of the slumping dairy industry.

The article revealed an obstacle to the growth of social media in agriculture: many practitioners aren't computer savvy.

For example, the community supported agriculture business, McKellar's Family Farm Fresh, communicates with customers using Twitter, while 30-year farmer Bob McKellar doesn't really know how it's done.

"I have a computer and a cell phone, and to be honest with you I know very little about either one of them," McKellar was quoted. "But what I do know is that these new ways can help reach people like we haven't been able to do before."

Some may be slow to adopt, but when they do come onboard, they will be able to find relevant information. One example is a Twitter feed by UC Cooperative Extension viticulture specialist Matt Fidelibus and viticulture farm advisor Stephen Vasquez called "GrapeTweets." The feed includes useful and interesting 140-character tweets, such as these recent posts:

• Prisoner attempts escape with big bag of raisins: http://bit.ly/5SuYf
• Experts to discuss effect of vineyard smoke exposure on wine quality at UC Davis. Course description and program: http://tinyurl.com/y9ndkrj
• The recent warm weather has been perfect for drying raisins. - http://mobypicture.com/?cxn9x5

GrapeTweets already has 130 followers, but Fidelibus acknowledges the information isn't reaching a critical mass of UCCE's viticulture clientele yet.

"The demographic of the raisin farmers we deal with is skewed more toward older growers, so we are not sure if they use this sort of technology or not," Fidelibus was quoted in the story. "But if we can dispel some of the myths about using Facebook and Twitter, then the potential to reach people could be huge."

UC ANR also has a page on Facebook and a number of active ag-related blogs, including:

Bug Squad, Happenings in the Insect World
Woody Biomass, News and information on woody biomass utilization in California
Postharvest Postings, Postharvest News & Updates from the University of California

UC ANR Facebook page

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