Report highlights disconnect between public perception of agriculture and contemporary ag practices

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Comments

Exactly how many of the mainstream media pick up on the survey ? We can read about it in several Agricultural magazines and such but it will almost never make it to the big city media outlets.Mainly because its not really the news that draws readers.
Other than the front page news of video abuse of animals or Bee and Butterfly loses, the major news media seems transfixed on small niche farmers trying to cater to big city populations with an overabundance of money to spend.

The disconnect between urban and rural has been growing for quite some time,it has become somewhat highlighted in Ontario with the last 2 elections but has been growing long before that.
There was a time when most city dwellers had a uncle,cousin or relative that owned a farm of some description,big or small.Where they could visit but those days are long gone,now they depend on the media to give them their farm facts and the media has only one objective and that is to garner headlines,the farm facts have become blurred.

When farmers fall all over themselves, on this site and elsewhere, to defend supply management and mandated ethanol, two things which aren't supported by:

(A) any basic economic principles at all
(B) the sectors of the farm community disadvantaged by each

the disconnect between farmers and reality is far-worse than any disconnect we may feel there is between the non-farm community and farming.

And when it comes to "blurring" the facts, nobody does it better than agriculture, particularly when it comes to the constant barrage of half-truths coming from supply management and ethanol.

Blaming the media for any "disconnect" between rural and urban is nothing more than pointing fingers in the wrong direction, and ignores the ever-increasing reality that farmers are the authors of any, and all, of the disconnect they feel.

Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON

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