The full story about California agriculture isn’t being told by the mainstream press, which is where people still get most of their information, according to a panel of farm-leaders and journalists at the recent California Press Foundation Winter Conference at the historic Marine’s Memorial Club in San Francisco.
The panel, which included Fresno County Farm Bureau CEO Ryan Jacobson, Central Valley farmer Joe Del Bosque, Kaitlin Washburn, agricultural reporter for the Sun-Gazette newspaper in Exeter, and Tim Heardon, editor of the Western Farm Press, said media coverage of California agriculture today is primarily focused on three issues: water, environment and immigration. The panel was moderated by former Fresno Bee executive editor Jim Boren, who now serves as executive director of Fresno State University’s Institute for Media & Public Trust.
The panelists agreed these are big and important stories that the daily press needs to be telling. However, they also emphasized that there are a host of stories going wanting for press attention and coverage, including the impact of changes in farm overtime laws, groundwater regulation, labor shortages, the impact of tariffs on local farmers, mechanization and what many in agriculture see as a negative political environment in Sacramento.
The panel also agreed they’d like to see more press coverage of how commodities are produced, how they get to market and to consumers’ tables. The farm-to-fork equation.
I agree with the panel that more coverage needs to be devoted to the farm-to-table supply chain, which is why I chose the name Farm-to-Fork for this column a couple years ago. It’s an information void I identified — and part of my mission here is to provide more information about how what’s produced by farmers in California gets to the grocery store and ultimately to our kitchen tables. It’s a complicated and amazing process the average person knows very little about.
Central Valley farmer-entrepreneur Joe Del Bosque pointed out this void in press coverage, saying the lack of overall reporting on agriculture by the daily press has contributed to fewer consumers understanding where the food they eat comes from. The solution to this in large part, Del Bosque said, is for the mainstream press to provide more and better information about farming and how food is produced in California.
Fresno County Farm Bureau CEO Hearden said he’s compiled background information on California agriculture and a list of expert sources for reporters and editors in order to help them to better tell the story of agriculture in the Golden State. He also said he has numerous story ideas for the working press and is available as a source to help them understand the industry.
There’s no doubt that California agriculture needs more press coverage, for no other reason than the fact it’s an economic powerhouse in the state, accounting for 6.4 percent of California’s economy, over 1.5 million jobs and $333 billion in sales, according to a recent comprehensive study by the California Community Colleges Centers of Excellence for Labor Market Research, the California Economic Summit and the University of California’s Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
But achieving this goal is easier said than done. The reality today is that daily newspapers and to a lesser degree local broadcast media are on the economic ropes. As a result, newsrooms have cut reporting staff to the bone and reporters who in the past had a single beat like agriculture now have multiple beats and are stretched very thin.
Certain newer aspects of California agriculture are receiving significant press attention however. These include the booming field of precision agriculture, also referred to as AgTech, high-tech indoor farming, which like AgTech is being fueled by billions of dollars in Silicon Valley venture capital funding, and what I call the farm reform sector, which includes farmers and agribusinesses that are focusing on areas like organic, regenerative agriculture and sustainability.
Why is this? First, because of the limited budget available to newsrooms and the time-constraints on reporters and editors, coverage of agriculture has become selective. The three areas I note above tend to be more interesting and sexy (and have better public relations efforts) to the working press, so they get coverage.
This 21rst Century media phenomenon and reality is something California agriculture needs to realize and focus on. The upshot being that if you want a certain aspect of agriculture to be covered, you need to make it interesting to the press. What’s your story? Tell it. The days of obligatory farm beat newspaper stories on basic production agriculture or the growing of feed crops aren’t coming back anytime soon.
There’s also a generational change happening in California’s newsrooms. Millennials have and increasingly are taking over for baby boomers in editorial and reportage positions. Their knowledge base and interests tend to be more matched with the types of agriculture I highlighted above, which is why these areas are getting more coverage than those the panel said need more coverage.
Social media is part of the coverage equation too. To a certain degree it’s disintermediated the reliance on the mainstream press in terms of where people go for news and information, although it’s important to point out that much of the original source information you see on social media posts comes from daily newspapers.
Farmers and others involved in agriculture have taken to social media individually and collectively to tell their own stories, bypassing the traditional intermediary, the press. This too has had an effect on the emphasis newspapers put on reporting on agriculture. The question asked daily in newsrooms is, ‘What should we cover and can we afford to cover it?’ The reality: Agriculture isn’t at the top of the list.
Lastly, specialty publications like this one and others have come into being to fill the void of communicating on California agriculture. These industry-specific publications have taken over for much of what in the past was the domain of daily newspapers.
Agriculture remains a huge story in California. But I suggest it can no longer be viewed as a single entity in terms of getting press coverage. Instead, just like with most other industries, agriculture has become diverse and fragmented. As a result, those wanting more press coverage need to work harder and better to reach out to and educate editors and journalists on the various segments of agriculture in California and the importance of reporting on them. Tell them a story.
Gaining the interest and participation of the press is a proactive game today because they have so many competing interests demanding their time and coverage. Key for California agriculture then in order to gain a greater share of attention and coverage is to elevate its awareness with the press.
Bringing farmers in direct contact with editors and reporters is the one best way to gain more press coverage. Forming relationships still matters. And it works. Breaking news: The farmer is the story.
