For more on some of the ag leadership programs offered in various states:
Indiana — https://www.agriinstitute.org/… or https://www.infarmbureau.org/…
Illinois — https://agleadership.org/…
Iowa — https://www.iowacorn.org/…
Kansas — https://karlprogram.com/…
Minnesota — http://www.marlprogram.org/…
Missouri — https://missourialot.org/…
Nebraska — https://extension.unl.edu/…
For more on NAAE see: https://www.naae.org/…
BE AUTHENTIC. BE YOURSELF. Zach Johnson, 40, known as the Millennial Farmer, is a sixth-generation farmer from Lowry, Minnesota. He uploads daily YouTube videos about his farm; he has more than 1 million followers and 300 million lifetime views since he started posting in the spring of 2016. Johnson said authenticity is important for the content he produces. “If you want to be a voice for agriculture, you have to know what suits you. Find what you’re good at,” Johnson said. “Be yourself. … people will sniff it out if you’re not being who you are, if you’re trying to make points you don’t actually believe,” Johnson adds.
Josi agrees. “Don’t be afraid to be yourself. Because the worst thing you can do on social media is pretend to be something you’re not.”
KNOW YOUR PURPOSE. Mitchell, South Dakota, rancher Amanda Radke, who hosts “The Heart of Rural America” podcast, said there’s always room for more people to advocate for agriculture both personally and professionally. But most importantly, people who want to do this need to know their passion, purpose and reason for being in agriculture so they can then tell an authentic story. “We all have a story to tell, and some are more open to hearing it than others,” she added. “I’m not going to change who I am or what I do to make someone else happy.” In her case, Radke said she and her family will continue to raise beef to the best of their abilities and tell others why they do it.
DECIDE HOW TO MEASURE YOUR SUCCESS. Is it to bridge the gap with nonfarmers? Or do you want to make money or a career from being an advocate?
DECIDE YOUR AUDIENCE. Determine who you want to reach and what works best for you to reach that audience. Do you want a widespread online audience or a limited but specific audience? Do you want to be a social media influencer and aim for an urban audience? Educate schoolchildren? Volunteer or work for an ag organization to help with its goals for farmers? Get involved in national politics or help promote a specific commodity for overseas markets? Once you decide who your audience is, you can develop a better plan of how to reach them.
BE CONSISTENT. Decide how often you want to get your message out and the quality of what you do. In social media, it can be daily videos — or short, effective videos posted three times a day of even 60-90 seconds. Phelan noted this is another reason why Josi has so many followers. “He is so consistent. His frequency is very high for posting.”
DELETE WRONG INFORMATION AND DO FOLLOW-UPS. If you have something wrong in a video, delete the wrong video and follow it up with corrected information on a new video, Josi recommended. If you have something wrong in other methods of communication to your audience, do your best to fix or delete the wrong information.
INVEST IN EQUIPMENT, USE IT WELL. Smartphones, tablets, or even computers can be valuable tools, but you will need reliable, fast internet to livestream your message or upload videos. Even with the best equipment, remember how important audio and visuals need to be: Your audience wants to be able to hear and see you. Use a good microphone, avoid the wind or too much background noise, record at high resolution, and watch your lighting — avoid being too dark in a building, or silhouetted against a window in your home, for example.
HAVE PHOTOS, VIDEOS, PROPS. Audiences are attracted to videos, photos and props. However, Josi said make sure you can explain what is going on in the pictures and videos you use, whether on social media online or in a speech and PowerPoint-style presentation. Otherwise, you end up spending a lot of time explaining the images later.
FIND MENTORS — AND BECOME MENTORS TO OTHERS. Radke said she is thankful for mentors along the way who gave her opportunities to write blogs about her daily life on the ranch. They also taught her to stand up for what she believed in. “We need to be fearless champions for the family farm and ranch. I look forward to doing that the rest of my life,” she said.
North Dakota’s Gabe Brown serves as a mentor to others: He shares his experiences and success with regenerative agriculture by traveling to farmer and corporate events to explain what he was doing at home. He also has 2,000 to 2,500 people a year visit his ranch. Brown was also a feature farmer in and heavily influenced the 2023 documentary “Common Ground.”
BE INSPIRED BY YOUR FAMILY. Ruth Hambleton said it was her mother’s influence that led Hambleton to develop a passion to strengthen agricultural education for women. She became the founder of Annie’s Project — named for her mother.
Seventh-generation Indiana farmer Kip Tom said he was inspired by his father, Everett, who turned the farm business over to Tom when he was in his 30s. Shortly before Everett passed away in 2022, Kip said they drove around the farm and stopped at one of the first fields Everett farmed. They noted that in Everett’s lifetime, production had gone from 30 bushels of corn per acre to around 240 bpa. “And then he looked at me and says, ‘Now, what are you going to do?'” Kip Tom said.
Philip J. (P.J.) Haynie III, from Reedville, Virginia, said seeing his father struggle as a Black farmer helped make him more determined to help him out. “I am expected to do something with my opportunity.”
INSPIRE YOUR OWN FAMILY. Through his involvement with various organizations, Haynie has helped to tell the story of Black farmers, but also inspire the next generation. “It’s my duty to install in my young ones a passion for farming and an appreciation for what Dad and Granddad went through. That we have a job to feed the world,” Haynie said.
ASK FOR ADVICE. “Don’t be afraid to reach out to other advocates and ask for advice,” Josi said. “You’re gonna run into some that are not going to be friendly. But there are some really good advocates out there that are willing to answer questions.
“And so, I’ve always tried to do the same because I appreciated it when I was starting out. And the industry you’re in, there’s a lot of good people that are there to help with information or data if needed,” he continued. He encouraged people to also ask organizations, industry associations, commodity checkoffs, etc. for information. He noted they usually have information available to share and they usually want to assist farmers.
HAVE HELP. Johnson admitted he juggles a lot in his hometown of Lowry in Minnesota: a family of his own, influential success on social media, and a full-time shared farming operation of 2,400 acres with his father. “On the farm itself, I still have dad around, he’s able to pick up slack and on that same line, when I’m really busy on the farm, my wife is really active behind the scenes on social media and taking care of the kids — we’re managing everything that comes along,” Johnson said.
MAKE FAMILY YOUR MAIN PRIORITY. Josi stressed how important it is to communicate with your significant other about what you’re doing. He advised to make sure that your social media does not cut into your family and your life offline. Going offline is always going to be more important than being online, Josi said.
While it may take more time on the front end of setting up what you want to do, limit your time later or plan better when to do things, he said. “I utilize my time really well. For example, when I’m mixing feed for the cows, I have to add water to the mix. And while I’m waiting for the water to add, that takes about eight to 10 minutes per load. I have four loads to do. That’s 40 minutes where I can be just sitting there. And I could just be scrolling, you know, social media, or I could be doing something productive. And so, I found those times where I can get things done without it actually affecting my life,” Josi said.
He said people should ask themselves: Are you doing speeches that are longer distances or involving more time away from your family and farm? Are there pivotal times in your kids’ lives that you don’t want to miss?
Did his own involvement as a social media advocate ever affect Josi’s life in the past? “Absolutely. Yeah, I got very consumed with it when I started to get big. And I will be on there responding to comments or answering questions. And it got to the point where I — thankfully — I have a very persistent wife that made sure I woke up to the fact that I was spending too much live my life online and was going to miss out on, you know, some major moments with our children, if I continued.”
BE SAFE — AND KEEP YOUR FAMILY SAFE
Josi shared that he has had death threats against him and his family. He said he learned to have thick skin, takes safety precautions, and doesn’t let the threats or verbal attacks get to him. The more they know they’re getting to him, the more they’ll do it, he explained.
The responses could be from people against artificial insemination, confined animal facilities, or other production practices.
He said there have been times he has found some of his followers wandering around his Oregon dairy barn after they drove into his yard past the “No Trespassing” signs. He had to ask them to leave after he explained this is a working farm that needs to follow safety and biohazard protocols. “I’ve had where people show up and they’re wandering the farm, just because they’re a fan and they want to meet me, and it’s like, ‘You can’t just wander around the farm … No, you can’t do that.'”
Josi also suggested you consider if you want everything open to the public, or if you want paid subscribers that can get some additional content. If the latter, they might then have access to your more personal thoughts, images and even pictures of your family. You can then control who sees what — for example, Josi controls what people see of his kids.
PICK YOUR BATTLES. You can decide, if someone has negative comments or is harassing you, whether to kick them off — or engage in a discussion with them. Allowing comments to stand will sometimes lead to your supporters or followers responding to the negative comments and explaining/defending/supporting you, Josi said. Use humor, too, as a tool in dealing with the situation.
“Sometimes it’s okay to just realize that there’s no way you’re going to get rid of this person, and it’s okay to stop trying,” Josi said.
He added that you should keep comments on your page, rather than responding to someone’s negative comments to you on their social media pages. Work the algorithm in your favor and draw people to your site, he suggested.
CONSIDER WRITING A BOOK. If you feel inclined, write a book about something you are passionate about in agriculture. Brown wrote “Dirt to Soil” about his family’s experiences with regenerative farming in South Dakota. Josi wrote, with the help of Steve Olivas, the book “An Industry Fighting For” about his working dairy farm in Tillamook, Oregon. And rancher Radke wrote children’s books about the ranching life.
KNOW WHEN TO STEP AWAY. If you need to take a break from social media or other ways you might be a Voice for Agriculture, take it, several ag advocates suggested. You can decide later whether you want to come back or do something different.
DON’T GIVE UP. “It’s a hard time to be and become an advocate for a sustainable ag future, because of how much is stacked against us every day as farmers,” said Michelle Hughes, 31, who advocates for young farmers in her role as the co-executive director of the National Young Farmers Coalition, based in Washington, D.C.
“But now is not the time to give up or become demotivated with our dreams for the future, it’s time to get creative about how we reach our goals with or without the support of the federal government. Our industry is in need of new voices, with new ideas for how we realize an equitable future,” Hughes said. “So, I would tell them to just hold strong and keep working to find a way even when it feels like there isn’t one.”
Other DTN Staff who contributed to this story include: Jennifer Carrico, Chris Clayton, Dan Miller, Susan Payne and Pamela Smith.
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To listen to a podcast hosted by Sarah Mock where Elaine Shein and her talk about how DTN selected this year’s Voices for Agriculture, who they are and some of the tips on being a Voice for Agriculture, go to https://www.dtnpf.com/….
Elaine Shein can be reached at elaine.shein@dtn.com
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