ACDC Newsletter

Tracking public perceptions about H1N1 and pork.

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:00:00 CST

Here are some of the research results we are seeing around the world about public perceptions regarding H1N1 flu, especially regarding concerns of the pork industry through identification as "swine flu." Most research studies being reported to date have tracked the early stages.

"Initial psychological responses to Influenza A, H1N1 ('Swine flu')"
Findings from a May 2009 survey among European residents indicated that only 7 percent had stopped eating pork.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2334/9/166

"Widespread public misconception in the early phase of the H1N1 influenza epidemic"
A June 2009 article in the Journal of Infection reported that only 6.9 percent of sampled Chinese residents of Hong Kong said they believe the H1N1 influenza is transmitted by eating well-cooked pork.
http://download.thelancet.com/flatcontentassets/H1N1-flu/preparedness/preparedness-51.pdf

"H1N1/swine flu update"
A May 2009 article from the Tempert Report cited a SupermarketGuru quick poll indicating that 93 percent of sampled U. S. consumers said they feel it is safe to eat pork products.
http://www.foodnutritionscience.com/index.cfm/do/monsanto.article/articleId/305.cfm

"Public perceptions, anxiety and behaviour change in relation to the swine flu outbreak: cross sectional telephone survey"
A research article in BMJ reported results of a telephone survey during May among adults in England, Scotland and Wales. Findings showed that at that early stage of the outbreak relatively few people made recommended changes in their behavior, despite widespread advertising and media coverage.
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/339/jul02_3/b2651

Students learning rural journalism, hands-on

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:45:00 CST

Using a two-part video series, students in a community radio class at West Virginia University documented their experience in learning how to help local residents tell their own stories. Class members teamed with teachers and students of Monroe County Vocational Technical Center to create a local news program, "News at noon." It was aired daily on an FM station based at the Center. Class members mentored and otherwise helped the high school students and local residents learn how to cover and report news of local interest. Beyond the skills involved, college and high school students alike said they learned about the value of community radio.

View the video at http://www.youtube.com > Search on "grassroots journalism"

Communication? Communications?

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:30:00 CST

Based on spellings and rationales used by the thousands of authors represented in this ACDC collection, it seems you can argue your case for either spelling. Take your pick. Spellings vary even within documents, we find. Staff associate Jim Evans observed recently:

"Corresponding about this recently with a friend in the academic community, I ventured: 'Would I be wrong in observing that researchers tend to adopt the spellings used, by tradition, in their home colleges/units? It seems we kind of inherit our spelling practices, based on rationales established early in the development of our academic units. I was influenced by the views of Dean Ted Peterson and others in the College of Communications here. They used communications to refer to means and activities - and used communication to refer to the process.'"

Here in the Center we let the spellings flow as they will. Fortunately, people seem accustomed to seeing and hearing an inscrutable variety. We welcome any thoughts you have on this front. Reply to docctr@library.uiuc.edu

Use computer mapping to boost agri-tourism, sell produce and

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:15:00 CST

Writing in the Journal of Extension, Ohio extension educator David Marrison described how he used a computer program to map local farms for rapid response to agricultural emergencies. He explained that educators can also employ this technology for many other uses, ranging from promoting local products and custom services to tracking weed infestations and mapping shortfalls in group membership.

"Educators are only limited by their imaginations for developing mapping programs," he concluded.

Citation: Using computer technology to map local farms
Posted at http://www.joe.org/joe/2009february/tt7.php

The future of African development is mobile. Or is it?

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:00:00 CST

Are you interested in some of the conversation about harnessing wireless technology to spur rural development, internationally? If so, here are two reports we added recently to the ACDC collection from the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada:

1. A case study in Uganda describes how many rural villages lack power, but have cellular coverage. PDAs were used in testing a new health network to improve access to medical information.

Citation: The future of Africa is mobile
Posted at http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-93967-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html

2. Alison Gillwald of Research ICT Africa identifies four challenges to extending the use of cheap and portable devices like mobile phones and PDAs.

Citation: Reality check: Will cellphones really solve Africa's problems?
Posted at http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-135108-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html

"Sow the wounds" is the eye-catching headline

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:45:00 CST

"Sow the wounds" is the eye-catching headline of a recent news report from Farms.com. It introduced current price information in the hog market, with a side note about losses that producers are sustaining.

"Looking like 1998 all over again, there seems to be no news of a Government aid plan coming, and producers are losing a lot of money. It's time to look at sewing the wounds, or in this case sowing the wounds!"

Thanks to John Otte of Farm Progress for alerting us to it.

Communicator activities approaching

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:30:00 CST

April 17-21, 2010
"Between passion & pressure" 54th Annual Congress, International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) hosted by the Belgian Association of Agricultural Journalists at Ostend, Belgium.
Information: http://www.ifaj2010.org

April 21-23, 2010
"Celebrating success in America's heartland" 2010 Agri-Marketing Conference sponsored by the National Agri-Marketing Association (NAMA) in Kansas City, Missouri USA
Information: www.nama.org

April 26-29, 2010
XIIIth World Congress of the International Association of Agricultural Information Specialists (IAALD) in Montpellier, France. Organized by Agropolis International.
Information: http://iaald2010.agropolis.fr

Ain't nature grand?

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:15:00 CST

A reader asked that question in the January 30, 1937, issue of Prairie Farmer. Why such awe, we might wonder, during those desperate years of the Depression?

"A million years ago she didn't know we would be wearing goggles some day, yet look at the way she placed our ears."

"Effective communication with wide cross sections of society is probably more important now than it's ever been."

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:00:00 CDT

"Effective communication with wide cross sections of society is probably more important now than it's ever been." This statement came recently from Dietram Scheufele, a life sciences communication faculty member at the University of Wisconsin. He expressed it in a conversation involving his research on communications about nanotechnology.

"The tricky part," he added, "is that, while scientists generally realize how important it is to connect with the public, many people have taken the approach that it will be enough if we just put sound science out there. But unfortunately that's not really supported by our research."

Note: Many documents in the ACDC collection reinforce his point - that in the public arena, "sound science" is not enough.

Citation: Professor provides analysis of work on nanotechnology research
Posted at http://www.news.wisc.edu/16060

Five tips for helping groups approach complex, value-laden issues

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:45:00 CDT

We have added to the ACDC collection a "how to" article in which Extension professionals describe five simple communications techniques for approaching tough issues in group sessions. These techniques are designed to reduce tensions, define real issues, address underlying values, break out of the usual brain patterns, involve different learning styles and discover unanticipated opportunities.

Citation: Communication techniques for initiating discussion
Posted at http://www.joe.org/joe/2009february/tt1.php

Who is responsible for ensuring basic food needs?

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:30:00 CDT

The government should be responsible, according to results of a recent worldwide poll in 21 nations. This survey by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, University of Maryland, indicated:

Majorities of 70-97 percent in all 21 countries said government should be responsible for meeting their basic need for food. The average was 87 percent.
The most universal support for government responsibility was found in eight nations: Indonesia (97 percent), China (96 percent), Jordan (96 percent), Kenya (96 percent), Argentina (94 percent), Azerbaijan (93 percent), Germany (93 percent) and Italy (92 percent).
Respondents in the following nations expressed least inclination toward that view: India (70 percent), U. S. (74 percent) and Russia (77 percent).

Posted at http://www.worldpublicopinion.org

Miscommunicating with pets

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:15:00 CDT

So you think you can recognize when your dog has misbehaved?You think you see a "guilty look?" If so, findings of a study reported recently in Behavioural Processes might prompt you to reconsider. Experimentation by researcher Alexandra Horowitz revealed that the human tendency to attribute a "guilty look" to a dog was not due to whether the dog was indeed guilty.

"Instead, people see 'guilt' in a dog's body language when they believe the dog has done something it shouldn't have - even if the dog is in fact completely innocent of any offense."

Citation: What really prompts the guilty look
News release posted at: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-06/e-wrp061109.php

Impact of classic rural photography

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:00:00 CDT

A new documentary focuses on perhaps the most influential rural photography effort in U. S. history. "Documenting the face of America: Roy Stryker and the FSA/OWI Photographers" is the title of this film which premiered during August on national public television. It "brings to life the remarkable stories behind the legendary group of New Deal-sponsored photographers who traversed the country in the 1930s and early 1940s to capture some of the most iconic images in history," explained an announcement. Experiences and photos of Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Walker Evans, Gordon Parks and other respected photographers are featured through their work with the Farm Security Administration and Office of War Information.

You can learn more about the documentary and the work of those featured in it at:

http://www.documentingamerica.org/Home.html
http://www.kcet.org/programs/online-magazine/index.php?pid=3

ICT - more than computers and the internet

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:45:00 CDT

Kimberly Clarke emphasized that point about information and communications technologies in an article we added recently to the ACDC collection.

She noted an international report that mentioned only Morse code, the telephone, wireless transmission, television, and satellite, mobile and fiber optic telecommunications in a timeline of ITC milestones. "There was no mention of the invention or evolution of papermaking, the printing press, or basic writing instruments such as pens and pencils. Relatively cheap technologies such as cameras, typewriters, tape records, VCRs and fax machines are ignored, as are the services and transport technologies that have revolutionized communications: the postal system, bicycles, cars, trains and aeroplanes, to name a few." She argued that "for the vast majority of poor people in developing countries, the best solutions will continue to be the ones that they are already relying on now: other people in their social network, radio, and in some cases printed materials. There is huge room for improvement in many of these 'old' ICTs."

Citation: ICT - what does it all mean?

Communicator activities approaching

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:30:00 CDT

October 30, 2009
Deadline for research and professional papers to be presented in the Agricultural Communications Section of the Southern Association of Agricultural Scientists (SAAS) conference on February 6-9, 2010, in Orlando, Florida.
Information: http://agnews.tamu.edu/saas > "Call for Papers for 2010 Meeting"

November 11-13, 2009
"Connecting: 2010 and beyond." Annual convention of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting (NAFB) in Kansas City, Missouri USA.
Information: www.nafb.com

Tapping into livestock courting skills.

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:15:00 CDT

We close with a limerick that sheds important light on communications skills of pigs.

There once was a pig called Norton,
Who attracted his wife by snortin'.
You may think this crude,
But to a pig it's not rude.
'Cause that's how pigs go a-courtin'.

"I wrote this in my 11th grade English class at Pennridge High School, Perkasie, Pa. back when I was an FFA student," Jim Phillips explained to us recently. Do you suppose his early signs of creative rural writing help account for his becoming a senior editor of Progressive Farmer magazine?

Thanks to Jim for this contribution. Do we have other writers or collectors of limericks that touch on the communications aspects of agriculture? If so, please send them to us by return e-note.

Sharp pains - and how health words matter in the public mind

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 10:00:00 CDT

Producers in the U. S. pork industry feel a sharp pain from this insight that is supported by research from the United Kingdom. A team of researchers in the Economic and Social Research Council has been examining the public interpretation of terminology used in policy documents and media coverage of health issues such as the bird flu scare and the foot and mouth outbreak.

"We found that the way people communicate about a threat largely determines how they understand it and behave towards it," said lead researcher Brigitte Nerlich. Some terms can make people sit up and listen, she reported, but they can also lead to panic or cynicism. She did not report research about how terminology may affect buying behavior.

"Recent advice on [H1N1] flu has centred on basic hygiene, which makes people feel they can do something practical, instead of being mere victims of so-called 'superbugs' or 'killer viruses.' But obviously this is easier to do when a disease is relatively benign."

Citation: Words matter in public health
Posted at http://www.esrc.ac.uk > conduct a site search on the document title

We extend anniversary congratulation

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:45:00 CDT

We extend anniversary congratulations to the University of the Philippines at Los Baños and the College of Development Communication within it. This month marks the Centennial observance of the founding of UPLB. Also, this year marks the 55th anniversary of the College, which was formed in 1954 as the Office of Extension and Publications within what was then the UP College of Agriculture.

Today the UPLB College of Development Communication is the only academic institution in the world that offers Bachelor of Science, Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy programs in Development Communication. Faculty members within it have pioneered in teaching, research and outreach related to this field.

Visit the UPLB College of Development Communication web site at: http://www.devcom.edu.ph

Rural economies benefit from broadband access. Digital divide remains

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:30:00 CDT

Evidence of economic benefit is available in an August 2009 report from the Economic Research Service of the U. S. Department of Agriculture. Researchers cited relatively higher growth in employment and nonfarm private earnings in counties that had broadband access by 2000.

Rural-urban differences continue at the household level, researchers found. "By 2007, most households (82 percent) with in-home Internet access had a broadband connection. A marked difference exists, however, between urban and rural broadband use - only 70 percent of rural households with in-home Internet access had a broadband connection in 2007, compared with 84 percent of urban households."

Citation: Broadband value for rural America
Posted at http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/err78

Where livestock producers turn for animal and herd health information

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:15:00 CDT

A survey reported in a recent issue of the Journal of Extension tracked the information sources of more than 1,700 Tennessee livestock producers. Among the findings:

The most commonly used source of animal or herd health information was the local veterinarian, followed by media sources, such as magazines, and the Extension Service.
About one in four used information from animal health companies.
One in 14 used the College of Veterinary Medicine.
About one in five used the Internet for such information.
More than 60 percent used more than one information source.
Multiple livestock enterprises seemed to invite use of more sources.

Citation: Use of animal or herd health information sources
Posted at http://www.joe.org/joe/2009february/a7.php

Pop radio program makes donkeys more productive, boys more attractive

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:00:00 CDT

Creative media selection has provided greater productivity and better lives for some working donkeys in Kenya. It also has added self-esteem and popularity among the teenage boys who handle them.

A report we have added to the ACDC collection explains how several health and animal protection agencies teamed up with an FM radio station. The station aired a series of programs aimed to change how the teenage donkey handlers saw themselves and how to care for and manage their donkeys. Helpful information, soap-style dramas, prize T-shirts and presence on a pop music channel at a specific time of day proved a winning combination - for the boys and their donkeys.

Citation: Communications success stories
Posted at http://www.developments.org.uk/articles/the-donkeys-tale

Seeking directions in the global biotech adventure

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:45:00 CDT

Lori Weaver, publisher and editor of Feeding the Globe, has revealed some recent discussion about the need for, and value of, genetically modified crops. A commentary we added recently to the ACDC collection presented some of the recent dialogue among scientists and interest groups about the role of biotechnology in global food security.

"Maybe the solution means we don't necessarily choose one way at the exclusion of all others," she observed.

Citation: Stopping for directions
Posted at http://www.agnewscenter.com/archives.cfm?news=4087

Communicator activities approaching

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:30:00 CDT

October 18-25, 2009
"The state of forestry information worldwide." Special session at the XIII World Forestry Congress 2009 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Information: http://www.fao.org/forestry/53818/en/

November 11-13, 2009
"Connecting: 2010 and beyond." Annual convention of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting (NAFB) in Kansas City, Missouri USA.
Information: www.nafb.com

Fire away, Smedley

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:30:00 CDT

Do you champion coordinated approaches to agricultural communicating? Are you impatient with piecemeal approaches? If so, you may appreciate this image from veteran communicator Bob Kern. A long-time advocate of the "consulting communicator" role, Bob recalls attending the first regional meeting of the American Association of Agricultural College Editors (AAACE) in 1951 or 1952.

After a discussion that ranged widely and lacked much significance, one of the editors stood up and recalled a cartoon set on the bridge of a weathered-in Coast Guard cutter, shrouded in thick fog. The caption could be a motto for communicators who remain satisfied with fragmented, blind and short-cut approaches to agricultural communicating:

"Fire into the fog, Smedley. There may be a rum-runner there."

How U. S. crop growers are using social media

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:00:00 CDT

A new document in the ACDC collection summarizes results of telephone survey research during early 2009 by Nicholson Kovac, Inc., among large-acreage corn and soybean growers in U.S. Some of the highlights:

Sixty-two percent said they have sent or received text messages during the past year.
Forty-eight percent of those texting said they send five or more texts per day and 63 percent said they have taken photos with their mobile phones.
Forty-seven percent said they spend five hours or more per week online.
For their business/farm interests, growers said they use Internet most for e-mail and weather and market information.
Eighty-five percent said they visit Web sites related to their farm operations and 76 percent check manufacturers' Web sites.

Posted at http://www.prweb.com/releases/Nicholson-Kovac/agmedia-study/prweb2767974.htm

"My writing style is indeed idiosyncratic"

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 09:45:00 CDT

"My writing style is indeed idiosyncratic," says agricultural writer Sue Edmonds of New Zealand. This "late blooming" journalist in the New Zealand Guild of Agricultural Journalists and Communicators is featured on the web site of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ). She shares some thoughts about her career, how she gets story ideas and how she approaches agricultural writing. She also provides several samples of her writing.

Posted at http://www.ifaj.org/professional-development/professional-features/a-late-blooming-farming-writer.html

Touch-screen learning breaks literacy barriers.

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 09:30:00 CDT

"Livestock Guru" is the name of an interactive computer program proving helpful to livestock producers, even those unable to read. Created by researchers at the University of Reading, UK, it teaches farmers how to diagnose, prevent and treat specific animal diseases. Experiences in Bolivia revealed that producers using Guru showed up to 44 percent increase in basic knowledge. This response was 10 percent better than that from conventional media such as videos or written materials. Guru had also been used with success in India and Kenya at the time of this 2006 report we have added to the ACDC collection.

Posted at http://www.developments.org.uk/articles/livestock-guru-cures-cows

Greater transparency - greater public uncertainty - then what?

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 09:15:00 CDT

Researcher Lynn Frewer examined that matter in a Toxicology Letters article we added recently to the ACDC collection. "Increasing …pressure has been directed toward maximizing transparency in risk management practices," Frewer noted. "As a result the uncertainties associated with technical risk assessments…will increasingly be subject to public and stakeholder scrutiny. It is therefore important to communicate this uncertainty in an explicit and understandable way that is focused on the information needs of target audiences."

Is the public able to understand and deal with uncertainty about complex risks? Frewer examines research about this question (answering "yes"), calls for more research and urges institutions to "learn how to internalize public views and societal values into the process of risk analysis."

Abstract and full-text purchase information at www.sciencedirect.com

"Masses have sense."

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 08:30:00 CDT

Lynn Frewer's thoughts about abilities of the lay public to understand complex risks remind us of a 1960 document in the ACDC collection by Samuel Lubell. He spent a career analyzing opinion trends (including research among farmers and others in rural areas). His observations prompted him to emphasize several points:

It is not true that the masses of people are less able than the more educated to master complicated detail. "I have done surveys of attitudes on automobiles and lawn-growing and have been astonished at the amount of complex, technical information the average man possessed on things that interest him."
In voting, professors are as emotional and irrational as ditch-diggers.
"In the light of this, it is difficult to believe that the general public is inherently incapable of understanding complex public issues."

This document is not in digital format. Check with us docctr@library.illinois.edu if you are interested.

Students learning rural journalism, hands-on.

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 08:15:00 CDT

View the video at http://www.youtube.com > Search on "grassroots journalism"

Communicator activities approaching

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 08:00:00 CDT

October 15, 2009
Deadline for submission of abstracts of papers and posters to be presented at the International Association of Agricultural Information Specialists (IAALD) XIIIth World Congress, Montpellier, France, April 26-29, 2010. Theme: "Scientific and technical information and rural development: highlights of innovative practices."
Information: http://iaald2010.agropolis.fr

October 15-18, 2009
Annual conference of the Association of Food Journalists in Houston, Texas USA.
Information: http://www.afjonline.com

November 11-13, 2009
"Connecting: 2010 and beyond." Annual convention of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting (NAFB) in Kansas City, Missouri USA.
Information: www.nafb.com

Closing with a farm limerick.

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 07:45:00 CDT

We close this issue of ACDC News with a limerick that caught our eye recently (yes, really) in the February 1, 1912, issue of Prairie Farmer.

A town chap who played in the band
Felt a call to go back to the land.
When he raises big corn
He can blow his own horn,
An advantage you'll all understand.

Time magazine as "a part of a conversation."

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 10:00:00 CDT

The role of news media jumped front-and-center during August when Time magazine devoted cover emphasis to a commentary critical of the agrifood system and practices in the U.S. "Getting real about the high price of cheap food" is the title of this piece by Bryan Walsh. AgriTalk host Mike Adams asked the author in a phone interview if that isn't one-sided - and if readers of a news vehicle wouldn't get the perception of such an article as a news story rather than an opinion piece.

"We're getting a lot of stories that are more angled toward the point of view of the writer," Walsh replied, referring to recent changes in the editorial approach at Time, "and there's pluses and minuses to that in many ways. On the one hand, we've found that we want to be part of a conversation and to be in front of the conversation means not just recording one perspective and another, just going back and forth like that, but saying this is what we can bring to the story and this is what we think and then we start off this conversation that hopefully goes forward."

You can read text of the phone interview at:
http://www.drovers.com/news_editorial.asp?pgID=675&ed_id=6029

Some of the early and varied responses in this media-coverage issue have been added already to the ACDC collection. Here are a few samples:

"Ag groups riled by Time article: call for letters to the editor"

"Time trashes American agriculture"

"Sustainable ag meets MSM (mainstream media) - and wins"

"Time brings the debate over food reform to the living room"

Ag journalists are paying more attention to ethics

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 09:45:00 CDT

Ag journalists are paying more attention to ethics, according to a research summary in the August/September issue of ByLine, newsletter of the American Agricultural Editors' Association (AAEA). The report highlights 20 years of research among AAEA members about their experiences and views concerning the relationship between advertising and editorial coverage.

Findings suggest that AAEA members, their publications and advertisers are showing signs of strengthening the role of editorial independence in today's commercial environment. However, these agricultural journalists continue to have significant ethical concerns. Researchers Karen Simon, Owen Roberts and Jim Evans reported findings during the recent Agricultural Media Summit and International Federation of Agricultural Journalists Congress in Fort Worth, Texas.

Posted at http://www.ageditors.com > August/September 2009 issue of ByLine

Bringing juice-taste marketing to mass media

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 09:30:00 CDT

That's the idea behind efforts of an ink marketer, US Ink, to encourage newspapers to stick flavored strips on pages to allow readers to taste the product advertised. The patented product, Taste-It Notes, was introduced earlier this year, according to a report from NorthJersey.com. The flavored strip is sealed inside a pouch to keep it fresh and hygienic until the package is broken open and tasted. The report we have added to the ACDC collection described positive results from a peel-and-taste strip placed in a grape juice advertisement in People magazine.

Beware the varied faces of "indigenous."

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 09:15:00 CDT

"To most readers, listeners or viewers, the word 'indigenous' would seem harmless enough as a description of an exotic group in a far away place," wrote Christina Tercero in the Global Journalist magazine of the International Press Institute. "But actually the writer using it generally does so out of a laziness or need for over-simplification. In fact, its use is controversial, leaving a large gap between reality and what the word conveys to readers."

Tercero based these observations on an analysis of how reporters at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and CNN determined when, how and to whom to apply the term "indigenous."

Citation: Defining indigenous in international news
Posted at http://www.globaljournalist.org/stories/2007/01/01/defining-indigenous-in-international-news/

Continuing concerns about cloning animals

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 09:00:00 CDT

A Gallup Poll during May 2009 revealed that U. S. citizens are still concerned about cloning of animals. Sixty-three percent of respondents in this national survey considered the cloning of animals as morally wrong. About one-third considered cloning of animals as morally acceptable. Less than two percent said they don't know.

Citation: Gallup Poll: whether cloning of animals is morally acceptable or morally wrong
Posted at http://institution.gallup.com

Using social media in Extension: a beginner's guide

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 08:45:00 CDT

A new resource we have added to the ACDC collection offers insights and tips in plain language for Extension educators who wish to consider using social media. This brief guide identifies some social media applications in Extension programming and provides tips such as:

Using a newsreader
Commenting on others' work
Sharing content, knowledge, ideas and products openly
Writing for the Web
Taking part in online communities
Using Creative Commons licenses

Posted at http://collaborate.extension.org/wiki/Beginners_Guide_to_Social_Media_in_Extension

Communicator activities approaching

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 08:30:00 CDT

October 15-18, 2009
Annual conference of the Association of Food Journalists in Houston, Texas USA.
Information: http://www.afjonline.com

November 11-13, 2009
"Connecting: 2010 and beyond." Annual convention of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting (NAFB) in Kansas City, Missouri USA.
Information: www.nafb.com

We're still fertilizing the agri-vocabulary

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 08:15:00 CDT

Last month we explained how "pellucid" is among the words MSN Encarta insists everyone simply should know. It describes expression that is easy to understand, clear in meaning or transparent. We asked what fresh term(s) we might use to describe the opposite kind of writing.

Thanks to Brian Meyer at Iowa State University for this suggestion:

"The opposite might be…putrid?"

H1N1 Flu? Swine Flu? - Appealing to a media ombudsman.

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 10:00:00 CDT

Here is one method being used to help clear the confusion. A concerned resident in Ontario, Canada, is appealing to the ombudsman of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) for help in addressing this internationally pesky issue of terminology. Owen Roberts, University of Guelph, describes the effort in his blog, "Urban Cowboy." The resident argues that use of the term "swine flu" leads to unjust bias against pork and harm to the swine industry.

Posted at: http://www.urbancowboy.ca/2009/08/17/cbc-ombudsman-asked-to-intervene-on-h1n1-swine-flu-verbiage/

"Ethical food shopping is now mainstream in Europe,"

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 09:45:00 CDT

"Ethical food shopping is now mainstream in Europe," according to research from IGD, an international food and grocery firm. "Until recently, ethical food shoppers were seen as niche. Now as many as seven out of ten Europeans we surveyed buy ethically at least some of the time."

What are the dimensions of ethical shopping? Priorities vary in countries and cultures across Europe, but here are some aspects of it in the minds of consumers:

Environmentally friendly
Organic, sustainable
Fair Trade
Local sourcing
Animal welfare

The report we added to the ACDC collection emphasized how food products with ethical credentials offer immense growth potential.

Citation: British shoppers lead the way
Posted at: http://www.igd.com/index.asp?id=1&fid=6&sid=25&tid=90&folid=0&cid=372

"Celebrity chefs - the new demagogues."

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 09:30:00 CDT

That is the title of a commentary we added recently to the ACDC collection from the International Public Relations Association. Pointing to the popularity of celebrity chefs in the United Kingdom, the author expressed concern about:

The dip in credibility of scientific experts producing nutrition-related reports that often contradict one another.
A growing relationship between the exultation of food (from chefs) and fear (from news of the day).

"Clearly the days of activist celebrity chefs are with us. Good luck to them, but for those of us charged with the challenge of communicating on behalf of the rest of the food industry, let's try that bit harder."

Citation: Celebrity chefs
Posted at http://www.ipra.org/detail.asp?articleid=990

Public image of U. S. farming and agriculture shown slipping.

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 09:15:00 CDT

We recently assembled for the ACDC collection a six-year trend analysis of this "image" matter. Results are based on results of seven Gallup Polls among U. S. adults between 2001 and 2008. Respondents in each survey were asked to say whether their overall view of farming and agriculture is very positive, somewhat positive, neutral, somewhat negative or very negative.

The share of "very positive" responses dropped from 23% in 2001 to 13% in 2008
The combined share of "very positive" and "somewhat positive" responses dropped from 59% in 2001 to 50% in 2008

Citation: Gallup Poll: views about farming and agriculture, 2001-2008
Check with us by return e-note if you are interested in seeing the detailed results.

A widening view of agricultural communications research

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 09:00:00 CDT

The broad and scattered nature of research literature about agricultural communications became more apparent through a recent analysis by researchers Eric Abbott, Jennifer Scharpe and Jim Evans. They presented findings at the Association for Communication Excellence (ACE) conference in Des Moines, Iowa, during June. Here is some of what they learned in examining such literature published between 2000 and 2008:

"By any measure, the literature of agricultural communication is widely scattered…" Researchers identified articles in more than 100 journals and concluded: "Databases such as Communication Abstracts, Agricola, and CABabstracts are missing most of the relevant literature."
"The 391 articles/books/dissertations collected in the current database from 2000 to 2008 represent only a portion of the total, yet certainly demonstrate a large amount of research activity in this area."
"The problem, and thus opportunity, is how to help network the diverse group of researchers from 132 universities/institutions who are active researchers in agricultural communications."

Citation: Trends in agricultural communication research: 2000-2008
Contact the lead author at eabbott@iastate.edu to inquire about access to the full report.

Tainted milk in China: struggles in coverage

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 08:45:00 CDT

A report that we added recently to the ACDC collection suggested that in early 2009 "the traditional media still had not managed to investigate and report the magnitude" of allegations regarding melamine-tainted milk powder in that country. A China-based journalist, writing under the pseudonym of Robert Chang, described in the Global Journalist how government media, "netizens," marketers, public relations firms and other parties responded. He emphasized the impact of online forums in this matter.

"Typically Chinese Internet users view cyberspace as a freer place to voice their angers, lodge complaints and expose corrupted officials," Chang reported. He said China Internet Network Center reported in July 2008 that China has 253 million Internet users, the biggest online population in the world.

Citation: Tainted
Posted at http://www.globaljournalist.org/stories/2009/02/28/Tainted

Communicator activities approaching

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 08:30:00 CDT

September 10-12, 2009
"Shaping the future marketplace: the opportunity hunters." Annual conference of the Canadian Farm Writers' Federation in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Information: http://www.afwa.ca

September 15-19, 2009
"Theory and practice: advisory work in a time of turbulence." 19th European Seminar on Extension Education in Assisi, Italy.
Information: http://www.agraria.unipg.it/ESEE2009PERUGIA/index.html

October 15-18, 2009
Annual conference of the Association of Food Journalists in Houston, Texas USA.
Information: http://www.afjonline.com

November 11-13, 2009
"Connecting: 2010 and beyond." Annual convention of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting (NAFB) in Kansas City, Missouri USA.
Information: www.nafb.com

Aiming to be agri-pellucid.

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 08:15:00 CDT

We close this issue of ACDC News with a little spice for the menu of agricultural writers. "Pellucid" is among the words MSN Encarta insists everyone simply should know - to fertilize the vocabulary. The term describes expression that is easy to understand, clear in meaning or transparent. What fresh term(s) might we use to describe the opposite?

Paying attention to media coverage of H1N1 flu in the U. S.

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 10:00:00 CDT

Here are several recent analyses of the amount and kinds of media attention devoted to the H1N1 flu:

"Media drumbeat amplifies coverage of flu outbreak"

"Pew Study: Top U. S. papers' swine flu coverage lacking?"

"A fierce outbreak of swine flu coverage"

"Media coverage: Influenza A (H1N1) outbreak 2009”

New IFAJ report highlights 11 uses of blogs to cover agriculture.

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 09:45:00 CDT

Visit the web site of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists to see a recent review of ways in which journalists in various countries are using blogs to cover agriculture. Uses range from entertainment to hard-news coverage, and beyond. Maybe you can add to this list, from your experience.

Citation: Why and how journalists around the world are using blogs to cover agriculture
Posted at http://www.ifaj.org/news/news-detail/article/1/why-and-how.html?no_cache=1&cHash=275453a470

Campaign promotes fair trade in the United Kingdom.

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 09:30:00 CDT

We have added to the ACDC collection a case report about "Fairtrade Fortnight." The author is Barbara Crowther of the Fairtrade Foundation, a UK-based independent body that awards the FAIRTRADE Mark to products. The 2009 Fortnight took place during late February and early March. According to this report, the 2008 campaign secured 5,300 media hits across various UK media and involved other activities such as 12,000 local events and visiting farm organization representatives from abroad.

"Our campaign reached an estimated 15 million adults, whilst retailers reported increased product sales during the Fortnight," Crowther reported.

Citation: Fairtrade Fortnight whets consumer appetite
Posted at http://www.ipra.org/detail.asp?articleid=940

No picture without people.

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 09:15:00 CDT

"Zooming zestfully: documentary on photo journalism" is a 12-minute exploration of a photojournalist's approach to working in rural India. Freelance photographer Zishaan Latif permitted two journalism students to document him on the job.

"The human side of life" is Latif's beat and he explains that he takes no picture without people. This report, available on YouTube, features some of his photos. You will also see how he goes about taking them.

Citation: Zooming zestfully
View the video at http://www.youtube.com > Search on "zooming zestfully"

How students gain global agri-food perspectives (plus media skills)

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 09:00:00 CDT

Fifty-one University of Illinois students have been "immersed" in the European agri-food sector during the past two years. At the same time, they have learned to use a variety of communications skills. These students have done so through an International Business Immersion Program (IBIP) program with the theme: "Firm, channel and industry dynamics within the European agri-food sector." Each year, they completed a preparatory course on campus, then an intense two-week immersion in agri-food activities throughout Europe. On the communications side, each student learned and applied skills in research reporting, interviewing, blogging, video production and article writing.

You can learn more about the program and see the trip book and photos during students' 2008 and 2009 studies in Europe at: http://ibip.illinois.edu

Juan Valdez: updating the image of a global icon.

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 08:45:00 CDT

Since 1959, a sombrero-wearing Colombian farmer, Juan Valdez, has served as "coffee ambassador to the world." Colombia is recognized as the first South American nation to claim an association between a country and a world commodity. Recently, the image of Juan Valdez has been retooled. Reporting recently in the International Public Relations Association web site, Juan-Carlos Molleda explained steps the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia has taken since 2004. The Federation has revamped the Valdez image to one of a youthful and authentic identity through a national contest that included the active participation of real Colombian coffee growers.

Citation: Authentic passion about Colombia
Posted at http://www.ipra.org/detail.asp?articleid=976

Communicator activities approaching

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 08:30:00 CDT

August 23-27, 2009
"Worldwide trends in open access to agricultural information." Agricultural libraries discussion group at the World Library and Information Congress of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) in Milan, Italy.
Information: www.ifla.org/annual-conference/ifla75/call-agricultural-en.htm

August 26-28, 2009
"Information and communication technologies for sustainable development." 4th World Information Technology Forum in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Information: http://www.witfor.org

August 31-September 4, 2009
Sixth International Conference of Animal Health Information Specialists in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Held in conjunction with the International Congress on Medical Librarianship.
Information: http://www.icml2009.com/events/icahis.html

October 15-18, 2009
Annual conference of the Association of Food Journalists in Houston, Texas.
Information: http://www.afjonline.com

Precision ag sends courtship message.

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 08:15:00 CDT

We close this issue of ACDC News with an example of using precision farming technologies for special kinds of communicating. Thanks to ZimmComm New Media for calling our attention to it.

You can see how a Texas crop grower recently used his GPS-based guidance system to plow the letters of his marriage proposal to his girlfriend, Lauren. She got the message when he invited her for an airplane ride that passed over the property. View the couple and the proposal message at:

http://www.precisionpays.com/2009/05/marriage-proposal-thanks-to-precision-ag-tools

"Swine flu coverage around the world"

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 10:00:00 CDT

"Swine flu coverage around the world" is the title of a report we added recently to the ACDC collection from the Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) of the Pew Research Center. During April and May 2009, PEJ studied 12 days of front-page newspaper coverage in seven countries and the top three Spanish-language papers in the U. S. Findings "revealed noticeable differences in attention, prominence and how the papers chose to frame stories."

For example, the number of cases of this flu in a given country had little to do with the volume of newspaper coverage.

Citation: Swine flu coverage around the world
Posted at http://www.journalism.org/analysis_report/Swine_Flu_Coverage_around_the_World

Trends in U.S. public attitudes to laws about treatment of farm animals

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:45:00 CDT

Here are some Gallup Poll survey data we assembled recently about comparative public attitudes in 2003 and 2008. The question in these national surveys among U. S. adults invited opinions about "passing strict laws concerning the treatment of farm animals." Findings from the two surveys:

	May 2003 Survey	May 2008 Survey
Strongly support	35%	29%
Somewhat support	29%	33%
Somewhat oppose	20%	21%
Strongly oppose	13%	14%
Don't know	3%	3%

Citation: Gallup Poll: views about passing strict laws concerning the treatment of farm animals

Pay closer attention to the rural, the poor

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:30:00 CDT

In a video we reviewed recently via YouTube, an honored journalist argues for media to pay closer attention to rural people, activities and issues. A 10-minute video, "P. Sainath on Indian media," features comments by P. Sainath Palagummi Sainath. He is 2007 recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism Literature and Creative Communication Arts.

Sainath observed that national media in his country assign no journalists to cover poverty and the poor, maintain no "rural" or "labor" beats. He offered reasons for this gap and challenged media to signal the weaknesses in society as well as highlight progress.

Whereas Sainath focused on media coverage in India, his thoughts and concerns resonate with those in any nation who are interested in effective communications in support of sustainable rural development.

Citation: P. Sainath on Indian media
View this video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=QewCqpgBiuw

"Emerging issues in the U. S. organic industry."

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:15:00 CDT

That is the title of a new economic information bulletin (June 2009) from the U. S. Department of Agriculture. Rapid growth in consumption of "organic" and "natural" products has led to varied issues, including some related to communications. Among those cited in the bulletin:

Consumer sensitivity to the price premium paid for such products, especially during the current economic slowdown.
"The low organic adoption rate for grain crops continues to be a bottleneck for expansion of the U. S. organic livestock sector."
Organic producers face competition from new labels, such as the "locally grown" label.

Posted at http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/EIB55

Confusion on the "fat" front.

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:00:00 CDT

Consumer search in the United Kingdom during late 2008 indicated that shoppers are unclear as to what saturated fat is and are confused by the different terms currently used to describe it. Sample terms:

Sat fat
Fat - of which saturates
Saturated fat
Saturates

"Only 30% of the 1,000 people interviewed recognized that "saturated fat" meant the same as "saturates. … A further 30% did not know what the term meant at all, 15% thought it was the same as fat in general and 7% believed saturated fat was the same as calories." This research was commissioned by IGD, United Kingdom.

Citation: IGD develops guidelines for consumer communication
Posted at: www.igd.com > Media Centre

Plenty more mid-year communicator activities

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:45:00 CDT

July 31-August 4, 2009
2009 Congress of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) in conjunction with the Agricultural Media Summit in Fort Worth, Texas USA.
Information: www.ifaj.org

August 1-5, 2009
"Saddle up, catch the cowboy spirit." Agricultural Media Summit in Fort Worth, Texas USA. Joint meeting of Livestock Publications Council (LPC), American Agricultural Editors' Association (AAEA), International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ), Agri Council of America Business Media, Agricultural Relations Council (ARC) and the International Association of Agricultural Communicators of Tomorrow (ACT).
Information: www.agmediasummit.org

August 23-27, 2009
"Worldwide trends in open access to agricultural information." Agricultural libraries discussion group at the World Library and Information Congress, Milan, Italy.
Information: http://www.ifla.org/annual-conference/ifla75/call-agricultural-en.htm

August 26-28, 2009
"Information and communication technologies for sustainable development." 4th World IT Forum in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Information: http://iaald.blogspot.com/2008/11/world-it-forum-2009.html

Honored agricultural spy fiction

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:30:00 CDT

You read that correctly. And you may recognize it as the lead-in to another honored entry in the latest Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. We close this issue of ACDC News with the runner-up entry in the "Spy Fiction" category of this international literary parody contest hosted by the Department of English and Comparative Literature, San Jose State University. Entrants were challenged to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels. Here's the food-oriented runner-up entry from David Potter, Nagoya, Japan:

"The KGB agent known only as the Spider, milk solids oozing from his mouth and nose, surveyed the spreading wound in his abdomen caused by the crushing blow of the low but deadly hassock and begged of his attacker to explain why she had gone to the trouble of feeding him tainted milk products before effecting his assassination with such an inferior object as this ottoman, only to hear in his dying moments an escaping Miss Muffet of the MI-5 whisper, "It is my whey."

Seven new research reports from ACE conference

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:00:00 CDT

These reports were presented recently to the Research Special Interest Group during an Association of Communication Excellence (ACE) conference in Des Moines, Iowa. You can read the abstracts here. Check with the authors about gaining access to full-text reports.

Katie M. Abrams and Courtney A. Meyers, "Comparison of persuasive message factors and frames in animal agriculture communication campaigns on the Web"

Karen J. Cannon and Tracy Irani, "Framing foot and mouth disease coverage of the 2001 and 2007 outbreaks in the United Kingdom"

Leslie D. Edgar and Tracy Rutherford, "Comparing previous research in agricultural communications to the National Research Agenda: Agricultural Education and Communication, 2007-2010"

Kelsey Hall and Emily Rhoades, "Influence of subjective norms and communication preferences on grain farmers' attitudes toward organic and non-organic farming"

Lisa Hightower, Hannah Carter, Rochelle Strickland and Karen Cannon, "Communicating agricultural leadership through mobile technology"

Courtney A. Meyers and Tracy Irani, "The agriculture angle: effect of framing agricultural biotechnology messages on attitudes toward argument quality"

Judith McIntosh White and Tracy Rutherford, "Impact of reporter beat assignment on source selection: implications for journalism education"

Rural broadband access is not enough

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:45:00 CDT

Current discussions about broadband service for rural areas need to move beyond the focus on access, according to a commentary we added recently to the ACDC collection. Joe Dales of Farms.com Professional Services suggested these goals be included:

User computer training
Internet training
Development of relevant broadband business applications

"It can be argued that there is little economic value to society in developing a global leading edge broadband delivery network if its primary use is to download games or videos for rural children."

Citation: Rural broadband - an important platform
Posted at http://www.professional.farms.com/cms/en/RuralBroadband.aspx

How to cover rural-urban relations

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:30:00 CDT

A new professional development feature on the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) web site offers skills and approaches reporters can use to cover rural-urban issues. This is the fourth in a series about rural-urban communicating. Authors Jim Evans, University of Illinois, and Owen Roberts, University of Guelph, described three types of rural-urban media coverage:

Filling gaps in rural-urban understanding
Covering rural-urban interests in conflict
Covering rural-urban inequities and imbalances

Then they identified skills, tools and perspectives reporters can use with each.

Posted at http://www.ifaj.org > Breaking News section

Part 4. Preparing agricultural journalists/communicators for the 21st Century

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:15:00 CDT

Here are suggestions from Bob Kern, past president and Professional Award recipient of the Association for Communication Excellence, about how to design an undergraduate agricultural journalism/communications program for the 21st Century:

"Writing is the primary communications skill - and will remain so for the foreseeable future."
"Within agriculture, schooling should include input/output economics, policy-development process, and U.S. production and marketing within world agriculture."
"Communications teaching should be based on applicable communications theory, emphasizing that which is research-based."

Read more of Dr. Kern's suggestions and reasons he offers for emphasizing them.

Thanks to all who contributed to this series

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:00:00 CDT

We also invite your thoughts and suggestions about how to prepare agricultural journalists/communicators for the 21st Century.

Welcome to a new ACDC staff associate.

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 08:45:00 CDT

We extend a special welcome to Karlie Elliott who joined the ACDC staff during May following her graduation from the agricultural communications program here, with a news-editorial emphasis. She is helping search for documents, review them and process them into the collection. This fall she will enter the masters degree program in the Department of Advertising here at the University of Illinois.

Karlie brings a great combination of skills and interests to the Center. Farm-raised in east-central Illinois, she enjoys and appreciates the full range of activities related to food and agriculture, internationally. Her undergraduate program has involved study in Latin America and Europe. She has gained communications and leadership experience through internships with Caterpillar Inc. and the Office of Communications, U. S. Department of Agriculture. On campus, she has served as president of the College of ACES Council and of the Agricultural Communicators of Tomorrow (ACT) student organization, among other activities. As a junior she was recognized as Robert Harrison Outstanding Junior Leader of the College of ACES. Recently she received the Warren K. Wessels Achievement Award as outstanding senior in the College.

Plenty more mid-year communicator activities

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 08:30:00 CDT

August 1-5, 2009
"Saddle up, catch the cowboy spirit." Agricultural Media Summit in Fort Worth, Texas USA. Joint meeting of Livestock Publications Council (LPC), American Agricultural Editors' Association (AAEA), International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ), Livestock Publications Council (LPC) and the National Association of Agricultural Communicators of Tomorrow (ACT).
Information: www.agmediasummit.org

It's more than link rot. How about data rot?

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:00:00 CDT

Thanks to Paul Hixson for introducing that broader question in response to our ACDC News item about the ephemeral nature of live links to agricultural information on the Internet. He alerted us to two recent reports from David Pogue, one in the New York Times and one on CBS Television:

Pogue's reports examine two aspects of data rot. One involves problems with the medium on which the information is stored (e.g., storage conditions). The other involves obsolescence of storage platforms (e.g., wire recorders and 8-track tape players).

What's to be done? "…it's something you have to take responsibility for yourself. No one is going to do it for you," suggested one of Pogue's resource specialists.

Farmer-to-farmer video - better than workshops in sparking innovation.

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:45:00 CDT

A 2009 report in the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability concluded that "farmer-to-farmer video has great potential to enhance sustainable agriculture by encouraging local innovations." Researchers reported these findings from a study among 200 women farmers in central Benin:

About 92% of those who viewed farmer-to-farmer learning videos and took part in hands-on training workshops developed creative solutions to rice processing based on improved parboiling methods.
72% of those who learned only through video did so.
19% of those who learned through workshops did so.

Thanks to Catherine Mgendi of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) for calling our attention to this report. Other materials in the ACDC collection confirm that implications extend beyond the settings of studies such as this.

Read a summary at: http://www.warda.org/warda/newsrel-videopower-jun09.asp

Food shoppers bombarded and bamboozled.

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:30:00 CDT

We recently added to the ACDC collection a research summary that raises a caution flag about information overload. Joanne Denney-finch, chief executive of IGD, United Kingdom, reported: "Shoppers tell us they are being bombarded by a variety of issues, day-in, day-out from a variety of sources…and they say that too much information bamboozles them."

According to reported research findings," only 21% are very confident that they understand all the information they receive about food, while 19% don't mind how much information they get - because they usually ignore it anyway."

Citation: Information overload is industry opportunity
Posted at http://www.igd.com/index.asp?id=1&fid=6&sid=25&tid=90&folid=0&cid=203

Part 3. Preparing agricultural journalists/communicators for the 21st Century.

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:15:00 CDT

Here are suggestions from Douglas Starr, professor of agricultural journalism at Texas A&M University, about how to design an undergraduate agricultural journalism/communications program for the 21st Century:

"Today's agricultural journalism/communications students need a Collegiate dictionary, a grammar book and an Associated Press Stylebook, and they need to learn how to use each…"
Know, be aware of and be knowledgeable about officials and news sources in various fields of agriculture.
"I strongly advocate [education in communication theory and research] because it will stand them in good stead regardless of where their careers take them."
"With the advent of the Internet and the World Wide Web, Ag Comm students should know how to write a second-day story because the Web page gets the first story."

Read more of Professor Starr's suggestions and reasons he offers for emphasizing them.

Students produce winning rural-urban videos

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:00:00 CDT

You can view three honored videos that college students produced recently to clarify how our food gets from the farm to the dinner table. These videos topped the Alpharma Ag Student Video Contest sponsored by Alpharma Animal Health:

"OatS" Produced by a team from the University of Wisconsin-Madison
"Today's Agriculture" Produced by a team from the University of Florida
"Beef: Our Priority" Produced by a team from the University of Arizona

Posted at: http://www.meetwhatyoueat.com/winners.aspx

Lots of mid-year communicator activities

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 08:45:00 CDT

June 25-27, 2009
"Free rein in the Big Easy." Annual seminar of the American Horse Publishers (AHP) organization in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Information: www.americanhorsepubs.org/programs/seminars/index.asp

August 1-5, 2009
"Saddle up, catch the cowboy spirit." Agricultural Media Summit in Fort Worth, Texas USA. Joint meeting of Livestock Publications Council (LPC), American Agricultural Editors' Association (AAEA), International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ), Livestock Publications Council (LPC) and the National Association of Agricultural Communicators of Tomorrow (ACT).
Information: www.agmediasummit.org

Yes, a new winner in agricultural fiction.

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 08:30:00 CDT

We have been delinquent in reviewing results of the 2008 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. You may recall it as an international literary parody contest hosted by the Department of English and Comparative Literature at San Jose State University. The goal of the contest is "childishly simple: entrants are challenged to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels."

So get ready. Here is the runner-up entry in the "Vile Puns" category. Michael L. VanBlaricum of Santa Barbara, California, entered it:

"The Jones family held their annual family reunion on Easter going through over six dozen spiral-cut, hickory-smoked hams and several bottles of a fine Australian shiraz, before Farmer Jones, the head of the family, took the leavings back to Manor Farm to slop Napoleon and his other champion hogs but the seventy-six ham bones fed the pig's tirade."

More bloggers (including scientists). What about science journalism?

Wed, 27 May 2009 10:00:00 CDT

Results of a recent Nature News Survey among hundreds of science reporters track the decline of science reporting in mass media. "Supplanting the old media?" is the title of a Nature article, illustrated by a tangle of USB and laptop cords and cables. It highlighted:

Traditional media shedding full-time science journalists
Growing workloads of remaining science journalists
Greater reliance on the public relations departments of scientific organizations
More bloggers, including an increasing number of scientists
New and diverse employment opportunities for science communicators in government agencies, universities, museums, nongovernmental organizations and other venues
Need to "invent new sources of independently certified fact."

Posted at http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090318/full/458274a.html

New course: Women impacting agricultural communication

Wed, 27 May 2009 09:45:00 CDT

Students at Texas A&M University enrolled last fall in a new course focusing on women professionals in agricultural journalism and communication. Teachers Tracy Rutherford and Rebecca McGovney-Ingram planned and taught it as part of a senior seminar. "The course went splendidly," they report. It featured two areas of focus:

Women who have pioneered and contributed as professional agricultural journalists and communicators, across the decades and in various parts of the career field. Students conducted research and made individual contacts.
Discussion about what it means to be female in this work environment.

A poster describing the course has been added to the ACDC collection.

Contacts: Prof. Tracy Rutherford at trutherford@aged.tamu.edu or Rebecca McGovney-Ingram at rmcgovney-ingram@aged.tamu.edu

Part 2. Preparing agricultural journalists/communicators for the 21st Century

Wed, 27 May 2009 09:30:00 CDT

Here are suggestions from Wayne Swegle, past president and an honorary member of the American Agricultural Editors' Association, about how to design an undergraduate agricultural journalism/communications program for the 21st Century:

The art of simple writing. "I think…communicating in an easily understood fashion, even in story-telling ways, is still in vogue and important in conveying ideas."
Greater understanding of some of the basic laws/rules of economics, as related to agriculture.
"Maybe a little dab [of communications theory and research] wouldn't hurt anything" at the undergraduate level. "I used to say that 'If you award a PhD to a journalist, you've ruined her/him for useful work.' … Since then, I've been disabused of that thinking, of course."

Read more of Wayne's suggestions and reasons he offers for emphasizing them.

104th anniversary of the Danish Guild of Agricultural Journalists

Wed, 27 May 2009 09:15:00 CDT

On June 5 the Danish Guild will observe its 104th birthday. This special occasion reminds us of poignant comments made by Torsten Buhl in a jubilee speech of 2005.

"It is our ambition to continue as an important and respected forum of exchanging knowledge and information within food and agriculture, just as the guild has been for 100 years. However, we must continue to combine this exchange of information with critical questions - remembering that sustainable development in any context is closely connected to democracy. And that a free press is a precondition of democracy - and vice versa. … Scientific research, development of agricultural practice, husbandry and industry, care of the environment and so on are closely connected to a free and critical press."

Title: Jubilee speech at NIMB
Posted at http://www.danskeslagterier.dk/smmedia/DLP-jub-Nimb-tale_doc?mb_GUID=EE90C017-0BD4-457B-93EB-D67689D85968.doc

You are marketing solutions, not food products

Wed, 27 May 2009 09:00:00 CDT

That message came through clearly from a speaker at the recent National Institute of Animal Agriculture conference in Louisville, Kentucky. Frank Beurskens of ShoptoCook, Inc., highlighted "Meal planning in the supermarket aisle: what consumers are telling us." Among the insights from this presentation:

What to serve each day is the biggest challenge facing shoppers
Many complain about "recipe rut," especially in preparing chicken
Shoppers are especially looking for meal items that kids will like
They are begging for variety and want to serve healthful food

Presentation posted, via Truffle Media Networks, at http://www.trufflemedia.com/home/content/frank-beurskens-meal-planning-in-the-supermarket-aisle-what-consumers-are-telling-us

Busy season for communicator activities

Wed, 27 May 2009 08:45:00 CDT

June 6-10, 2009
"When tillage begins, other arts follow." ACE.NETC.09 sponsored by the National Extension Technology Conference (NETC) and the Association for Communication Excellence in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Life and Human Sciences (ACE), in Des Moines, Iowa USA.
Information: http://www.extension.iastate.edu/acenetc2009

June 13-16, 2009
"Branding communications with a kick." Annual Institute of the Cooperative Communicators Association (CCA) in Kansas City, Missouri USA.
Information: http://www.communicators.coop

June 22-24, 2009
7th World Congress of Computers in Agriculture and Natural Resources in Reno, Nevada USA.
Information: www.wcca2009.org

August 1-5, 2009
"Saddle up, catch the cowboy spirit." Agricultural Media Summit in Fort Worth, Texas USA. Joint meeting of Livestock Publications Council (LPC), American Agricultural Editors' Association (AAEA), International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ), Livestock Publications Council (LPC) and the National Association of Agricultural Communicators of Tomorrow (ACT).
Information: www.agmediasummit.org

Resolved to "be a wiser wordsmith."

Wed, 27 May 2009 08:30:00 CDT

Early this year we added to the ACDC collection a column in which agricultural reporter Cyndi Young-Puyear expressed this goal. She captured a desire and challenge shared by many agricultural journalists and communicators, everywhere: "These are words I just love to roll around on my tongue before speaking them, and others I could choke on before spitting them out."

Not among her favorites: "carbon footprint," "faith-based," "at the end of the day" and acronyms that are "unfamiliar to almost everyone outside of production agriculture."

Update on broadband service in rural America

Tue, 12 May 2009 10:00:00 CDT

Recently we added to the ACDC collection the 2009 edition of "Rural Broadband at a Glance," a report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Among the findings reported:

Broadband access for both rural and urban populations increased rapidly between 2000 and 2006.
Clusters of lower service exist in areas with sparse, aging and declining populations.
Internet use (at home or elsewhere) during 2007 reached 63 percent among rural households, compared with 73 percent among urban households.
Business development, telemedicine and teleworking are among the drivers for broadband development in rural areas.

Posted at http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/EIB47/EIB47.pdf

We missed a message

Tue, 12 May 2009 09:45:00 CDT

Did you try to get in touch with us recently about something related to agriculture as portrayed in the ads? An e-mail message with a title to that effect got lost, by accident. We apologize and would encourage you to resend it.

Preparing agricultural journalists/communicators for the 21st Century

Tue, 12 May 2009 09:30:00 CDT

Thanks to those who kindly shared their views recently about how to design an undergraduate agricultural journalism/communications program for the 21st Century. Their responses are being added to the ACDC collection. Also, with this issue we begin a series that highlights their suggestions.

Part 1. Samantha Yates, Publications Specialist with the Cotton Economics Research Institute, Texas Tech University, suggests these areas for emphasis:

Proper grammar
A style of writing that is both intelligent and that speaks to the level of your audience
Design and photography
Web design "is a must for ag communicators to learn"
"Communications theory and research was drilled into me all through graduate school, and while I thought a lot of it was pointless, it has made me better at my job."

Read more of Samantha's suggestions and reasons she offers for emphasizing them.

Shoppers still buying local during economic downturn

Tue, 12 May 2009 09:15:00 CDT

Two-thirds (65 percent) of United Kingdom shoppers now buy locally branded food, according to research by international grocery firm IGD. In response to a survey late last year, 60 percent predicted the economic slowdown will have no impact on those purchases. Only 20 percent expected to cut back.

"In these tough conditions, many people are keener than ever to support nearby jobs through their spending choices," explained IGD Chief Executive Joanne Denney-Finch. Research revealed that freshness and environmental reasons also account for consumers' enthusiasm for local food.

Citation: Shoppers still buying local despite credit crunch
Posted at http://www.igd.com/index.asp?id=1&fid=6&sid=25&tid=90&folid=0&cid=419

"We love eBlasts"

Tue, 12 May 2009 09:00:00 CDT

"We love eBlasts," said Denise Faguy in a recent issue of the Highlighter newsletter from Farms.com. "At least we do when they are done properly." She emphasized how email blasts can:

Build brand awareness and loyalty
Drive traffic to your website
Raise awareness (as well as generate leader or sales) for specific products or services
Provide immediate feedback. "In marketing, feedback is such an important tool and that's why we love eblasts!"

Citation: Why we love eBlasts
Posted at http://www.professional.farms.com/cms/en/eblast.aspx

Is dietary knowledge enough? No.

Tue, 12 May 2009 08:45:00 CDT

Healthy eating involves more than increasing public awareness of better diets and healthy lifestyles. A recent research report we added from the U. S. Department of Agriculture documented the over-riding impact of "visceral," impulsive influences."

Analyses of data about food intake revealed that individuals were significantly likely to consume more calories and lower their diet quality when:

Intervals between meals were extended
They ate away from home

How about going out for a late meal this evening?

Citation: Is dietary knowledge enough?
Report posted at http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/ERR62/#2008-8-11

Busy season for communicator activities

Tue, 12 May 2009 08:30:00 CDT

May 21-25, 2009
"Keywords in communication." 2009 conference of the International Communication Association in Chicago, Illinois USA.
Information: www.icahdq.org

May 24-28, 2009
"25 years of strengthening international agricultural and extension education." Annual conference of the Association for International Agricultural and Extension Education (AIAEE) in Puerto Rico.
Information: www.aiaee.org

May 27-29, 2009
Fourth international conference on ICT for development, education and training in Dakar, Senegal.
Information: www.elearning-africa.com

June 13-16, 2009
"Branding communications with a kick." Annual Institute of the Cooperative Communicators Association (CCA) in Kansas City, Missouri USA.
Information: http://www.communicators.coop

June 22-24, 2009
7th World Congress of Computers in Agriculture and Natural Resources in Reno, Nevada USA.
Information: www.wcca2009.org

August 1-5, 2009
"Saddle up, catch the cowboy spirit." Agricultural Media Summit in Fort Worth, Texas USA. Joint meeting of Livestock Publications Council (LPC), American Agricultural Editors' Association (AAEA), International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ), Livestock Publications Council (LPC) and the National Association of Agricultural Communicators of Tomorrow (ACT).
Information: www.agmediasummit.org

UK shoppers increasingly interested in animal welfare

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 10:00:00 CDT

Continuing research by IGD, United Kingdom, suggests that British shoppers are becoming increasingly engaged with standards of animal welfare when they buy food. This trend is apparent across five years of responses from shoppers.

20% of shoppers said in 2009 that knowing about the standards of animal welfare has become one of their key drivers for product choice. This is up from 8% in 2005, 10% in 2006, 11% in 2007 and 13% in 2008.
46% of shoppers said in 2009 they were concerned about animal living conditions. This is up from 30% in 2005 and 2006, 37% in 2007 and 38% in 2008.

Citation: Interest in animal welfare still increasing
Posted at: www.igd.com > Media Centre

Rural radio serials. Old fashioned? Think again

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 09:45:00 CDT

Thanks to Neil Inall of Australia for alerting us to a recent television feature emphasizing how "drama has been/is a top way to improve knowledge and to bring about behaviour change." The feature was aired early this year on "Landline," weekly Australian Broadcasting Corporation program about matters rural.

The featured guest, ABC rural journalist Ingrid Just, had won a Churchill scholarship to study radio serials in the United Kingdom and USA. She became acquainted with Britain's much loved BBC rural radio serial, "The Archers." In Iowa she took part in a serials workshop. Now, she says, "it is time the ABC was once again a world leader in the production of radio drama serials."

The ACDC collection contains much evidence, internationally, to support Ingrid's belief in the enduring effectiveness of radio as a powerful means of communicating about rural life, people and activities. Radio drama can capture the power of imagination.

Script posted at http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2008/s2503104.htm
"Play video" option available.

Who does what in addressing rural-urban matters

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 09:30:00 CDT

You can get a perspective by visiting the web site of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ). "Sorting the roles of journalists and other communicators in covering rural-urban issues" is the third in a series by Owen Roberts of the University of Guelph and Jim Evans of the University of Illinois. Here are some questions they addressed:

What do journalists affiliated with independent commercial media see as their roles in covering rural-urban matters?
What are the roles of journalists and communicators who represent interests wishing to advance points of view about such matters?
Have these roles changed, or are they changing?
Do independent and point-of-view communicators share some roles? If so, what?

Authors say they found this a tough assignment, both challenging and enlightening. And important. They invite the thoughts and ideas of others.

Posted at http://www.ifaj.org > Breaking News Section

Lessons in democracy from local weekly newspapers

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 09:15:00 CDT

Economic threats to newspapers and other news media are putting the U.S. democratic society at risk, an agricultural journalism professor emphasized in a recent call for action. Douglas P. Starr of Texas A&M University explained:

"In the United States, government by the people depends upon people's access to information, information that is provided by the news media, mainly newspapers and their World Wide Web pages and their reporters, news editors, and copyeditors, all of whom contribute to the accuracy and objectivity of the news story."

He identified seven things that must happen "for the good of the United States, for the good of all the people." Of those, three touched on providing more local news - "what county weekly newspapers have been doing for generations."

Citation: Future of the United States
Posted at: http://web.library.uiuc.edu/asp/agx/acdc/starr.pdf

Paid ads "creeping onto the front covers of magazines."

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 09:00:00 CDT

Thanks to Pam Smith for calling attention to a recent New York Times article about that topic. Agricultural magazines were not among those mentioned, but questions about selling cover ads are confronting agricultural publishers. The author of this article noted that such questions arise, in part, because of "tough times" and because "many new media have less stringent policies about where ads may appear."

Posted at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/business/media/12adco.html?_r=1

We invite your help

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 08:45:00 CDT

We invite your help in identifying reports, editorials, commentaries and examples that involve separation of editorial and advertising content on the covers of agricultural magazines. Please send them to us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu - or point us toward such information. Thanks.

You can check recent progress in the Center

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 08:30:00 CDT

Read the latest annual summary of activities and progress in the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center here at the University of Illinois. It is posted on the ACDC web site.

Visit http://web.library.uiuc.edu/asp/agx/acdc/report2008.pdf

Communicator activities approaching

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 08:15:00 CDT

May 12-14, 2009
"Celebrating deep roots, strong branches, new heights." Twentieth anniversary meeting of the Turf and Ornamental Communicators Association (TOCA) in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Information: www.toca.org

May 27-29, 2009
Fourth international conference on ICT for development, education and training in Dakar, Senegal.
Information: www.elearning-africa.com

June 13-16, 2009
"Branding communications with a kick." Annual Institute of the Cooperative Communicators Association (CCA) in Kansas City, Missouri USA.
Information: http://www.communicators.coop

The long winter and economic downturn have affected our lexophiles

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 08:00:00 CDT

We can tell by some of the strange mental meanderings of these lovers of words:

You feel stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.
A lot of money is tainted. 'Taint yours and 'taint mine.
Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.

French television ads feature farm jobs

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 10:00:00 CDT

"L`agriculture, des métiers à la mode" (farming jobs are in fashion) is the theme of a television advertising campaign in France to attract people into agriculture. It is sponsored by an agricultural organization, FNSEA, and we became aware of it through an item in the Farmers Weekly Interactive (UK).

These six brief spots are not your usual rural promotions. When you watch them online you should be ready for "How's-that-again?" images such as baled-hay earphones and a purple sheep.

Posted at: http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2009/02/28/114520/video-french-tv-campaign-to-attract-people-into-farming.html

Ten new agricultural communications research reports

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:45:00 CDT

Faculty members and graduate students presented 10 research reports at the recent annual meeting of the Southern Association of Agricultural Scientists (SAAS) in Atlanta, Georgia. Here are the topics addressed in the Agricultural Communications Section:

You can review these papers at: http://agnews.tamu.edu/saas/saasproceedings.html

Rural learning from a hole in the wall

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:30:00 CDT

School-based education is outside the domain of this Center, but implications of educational researcher Sugata Mitra's "hole in the wall" experiments in remote sectors of India extend far beyond the classroom. In fact, as you may know, "hole in the wall" experiments inspired the movie "Slumdog Millionaire," winner of four Golden Globe Awards.

What happens when you install an internet-connected computer and touchpad in a hole in a wall of a remote village or urban slum area? No teacher or advisor on hand. No curriculum. Just leave it there.

"Minimally invasive education" and "outdoctrination" are terms Mitra uses to describe this insightful approach to learning in a digital era. It uses the power of collaboration and the mutual curiosity of children, complementing the framework of traditional schooling.

You can view a conference presentation in which Mitra described his remarkable experiments and the results of them: www.ted.com/index.php/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html

Here are other resources that may interest you:
Essay by Sugata Mitra about the wall project: www.ncl.ac.uk/egwest/holeinthewall.html
Hole in the Wall website: www.hole-in-the-wall.com

Eating on cruise control

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:15:00 CDT

The obesity epidemic is driving public health researchers to entertain the idea of focusing less on nutrition education and more on shaping the food environment. What about viewing eating as an automatic behavior, over which we have limited control? Writing in Preventing Chronic Disease, Deborah Cohen and Thomas Farley cited studies indicating that eating should be so viewed. For example:

Eating begins without conscious intent, often simply because it is mealtime.
People generally are not aware of how much they are eating.
The natural trajectory of eating is for it to continue.
People are less likely to stop eating because they were full than because no food or drink remains,

Authors also reported research pointing to "high levels of food marketing, accessibility, and quantity as the 'toxic environment' at the root of the obesity epidemic." In this environment, they said, educational or motivational approaches to reducing consumption will continue to fail.

Citation: Eating as an automatic behavior
Posted at http://www.rand.org/pubs/reprints/2008/RAND_RP1326.pdf

Communicator activities approaching

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:00:00 CDT

April 19-21, 2009
Annual spring meeting of North American Agricultural Journalists (NAAJ) in Washington, D. C.
Information: www.naaj.net/meeting.html

May 27-29, 2009
Fourth international conference on ICT for development, education and training in Dakar, Senegal.
Information: www.elearning-africa.com

June 13-16, 2009
"Branding communications with a kick." Annual Institute of the Cooperative Communicators Association (CCA) in Kansas City, Missouri USA.
Information: http://www.communicators.coop

How to visualize the disappearance of farmland: a fresh photo idea

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 08:45:00 CDT

Photographer Scott Strazzante's creative approach to visualizing rural-urban change earned "News Gem" honors during 2008. "Jon Marshall's News Gems," presented by the Society of Professional Journalists, are described as representing the best of American journalism. Here's what earned the photographer that recognition:

"Six years ago photographer Scott Strazzante chronicled the dismantling of a family farm on the outskirts of metropolitan Chicago. Strazzante revisited the same plot of land where a subdivision now stands. With "Another Country" in the Chicago Tribune Magazine, he brilliantly juxtaposes pictures he took of the disappearing rural life with photos of the suburban present."

Citation: Farm meets the subdivision

"Remember the poor sods who have to listen to you."

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 10:00:00 CDT

Those words, carved as graffiti on a lectern at Leeds University, were on the mind of Clive Dalton when he shared thoughts recently with members of the New Zealand Guild of Agricultural Journalists and Communicators. He praised the skills of a speaker who did just that - remembered the poor sods - in talking with journalism students.

"He restoreth my soul, and I saw a master at work," Dalton explained. No PowerPoint visuals; "HE was the visual aid." No movement from the lectern. Instead, the speaker remembered his audience. "He…was relaxed so made us feel relaxed, he used body language, facial gestures; he used varying voice tones with some fantastic mimicry…He used eye contact - self-deprecation. … He knew how we were feeling, and he ended with a clear motivating message for the students. He invited and dealt with the questions with warmth and respect, and we all wanted to hear more.

"Oh praise be, it was a wonderful example of how communication can be so effective and entertaining, if you get a few basic things right."

Citation: Blessed be the communicators
Posted at http://www.guildag.co.nz

Roles for the agricultural library of the future

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 09:45:00 CDT

You can gain perspectives about the outlook for agricultural libraries by tuning in on a recent virtual conversation among members of the International Association of Agricultural Information Specialists.

Citation: What roles for the agricultural library
Posted at: http://iaald.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-accessible-is-your-agricultural.html

Rural radio and mobile phones - a powerful mix

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 09:30:00 CDT

An article we added recently to the ACDC collection from PCWorld described efforts in Africa and elsewhere to help rural listeners interact in real time with radio programming. Examples cited:

Farmers sharing information about crop conditions and farming practices
Receiving and sending market prices for crops and livestock
Being interviewed over the phone
Asking questions during live radio shows via text messages

Reporter Ken Banks observed, "Although I'm a great fan of mobile phone technology, it isn't by default the best tool for reaching out to rural communities. Radio - far from being outdated and irrelevant - remains a powerful, relevant and far-reaching medium. Unrivalled, in fact."

Citation: Mobile phones join the rural radio mix

"Link rot" - Web-based erosion of agricultural knowledge

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 09:15:00 CDT

What happens when authors cite URLs in the reference sections of their publications - or organizations or individuals post reports or proceedings on web sites? "Link rot" happens. Live links become dead links. How much of such information is lost?

A research article published in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology offered a clue. Author Carmine Sellitto examined the permanence of 1,068 Web-located citations in 123 academic conference articles published between 1995 and 2003.

46 percent of all citations to Web-located sources could not be accessed.
Collectively, the missing citations accounted for 22 percent of all citations, "which represents a significant reduction in the theoretical knowledge base underpinning many scholarly articles."

Our approach, based on counsel from library archivists, is to capture online material when possible and preserve it in paper or electronic format. As a result, when you identify a document of interest in the ACDC collection and find in the citation that the noted URL is no longer working you should get in touch with us. We fight "link rot" by working to maintain access to all documents you identify in the ACDC collection.

And they tease us about talking to animals

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 09:00:00 CDT

Here's more ammunition to use when detractors ask you (with that sly grin) if agricultural communicators talk to animals. We recently added to the ACDC collection the report of an Associated Press-Petside.com phone survey among 1,129 randomly chosen pet owners. Among the findings:

Two-thirds of the responding pet owners said they understand their animals' barks, purrs and other sounds.
Sixty-two percent said that when they speak their pets get the message.
One-fifth said they and their pets understand each others' sounds completely.

Citation: Poll: 67% of pet owners say they "talk"
Posted at http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2008-12-17-pets_N.htm

Communicator activities approaching

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 08:45:00 CDT

April 15-17, 2009
"Hot ideas and sizzling solutions." 2009 Agri-Marketing Conference sponsored by the National Agri-Marketing Association (NAMA) in Atlanta, Georgia USA.
Information: http://www.nama.org/amc

May 27-29, 2009
Fourth international conference on ICT for development, education and training in Dakar, Senegal.
Information: www.elearning-africa.com

June 13-16, 2009
"Branding communications with a kick." Annual Institute of the Cooperative Communicators Association (CCA) in Kansas City, Missouri USA.
Information: http://www.communicators.coop

Words to be banished this year

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 08:30:00 CDT

We close this issue of ACDC News with some environmental and economy-related words considered worthy to be banish. They appeared in the "2009 List of Banished Words" from word-watchers at Lake Superior State University, Sault Ste Marie, Michigan. Here are a few of them nominated as worthy to be "banished…for mis-use, over-use and general uselessness:"

Green (and all its variables, such as "going green)
Carbon footprint
Bailout
It's that time of year again

Posted at http://www.lssu.edu/banished/current.php

What words related to food and agriculture might you add to a 2009 list as worthy to be banished?

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 08:15:00 CDT

Please send them to us by return e-note. Thanks.

Experimental model for hyperlocal rural community journalism

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 10:00:00 CDT

The Forum, a citizen-driven news website that serves several rural communities in New Hampshire, is the focus of a report we added recently to the ACDC collection. With part-time paid editors and more than a hundred volunteer authors, "the content of the audience-driven Forum reflects the communities it serves." Founders launched this not-for-profit enterprise under the auspices of the "friends" group of a local library.

You can read a case study of operations and outcomes in a report from the Beckman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.

Citation: The Forum
Posted at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/sites/cyber.law.harvard.edu/files/The%20Forum_MR.pdf

Internet access in rural China

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 09:45:00 CDT

We recently added to the ACDC collection a book by Jinqiu Zhao, The Internet and rural development in China: the socio-structural paradigm. The author's research provided empirical evidence about the impact of the Internet on the livelihood of rural people. It also identified some innovative uses of the Internet in rural development.

Experiences in four rural places indicated that "the existing economy and infrastructure of the rural areas can hardly sustain the adoption of an advanced technology as the Internet, whose diffusion at these rural places is by no means a natural development. While farmers may have individual choices in selecting the traditional means of communication for information about the market, scientific farming, health and other issues, the Internet as an advanced technology could only be introduced to them through either a government initiative…or an external investment."

Citation: The Internet and rural development in China

Agricultural data mining - 164 years back

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 09:30:00 CDT

Reports added recently to the ACDC collection described some incredible agricultural reporting. "Documenting Louisiana Sugar 1845-1917," a project at the University of Sussex (UK), explained how three agricultural economists collected data throughout that time period for the annual "Louisiana Sugar Report." Records include plantation ownership, indexes of cane growers and manufacturers, sugar prices, crop yields, production technologies used, stocks, trade detail and other information.

Those data, now publicly available through the project, provide access to a hundred thousand data entries that "provide scholars, genealogists, and members of the public with an unparalleled opportunity to examine the plantation regime in exceptional depth.…No other public database detailing plantation life in this detail exists."

Citation: Bouchereau, the Louisiana Sugar Report
Posted at http://www.sussex.ac.uk/louisianasugar

"Why we love eBlasts."

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 09:15:00 CDT

In a feature article we added recently to the ACDC collection Denise Faguy said she and her associates at Farms.com Professional Services love email blasts. They can, she explained: (a) build brand awareness and loyalty, (b) drive traffic to your website and (c) raise awareness for specific products or services, as well as generate leads or sales.

"But here is the part we LOVE about eblasts," she added. She emphasized the value of immediate feedback, the detailed tracking of user activity in response to them.

Posted at: http://www.professional.farms.com/cms/en/eblast.aspx

How we pay - and what we eat

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 09:00:00 CDT

Do consumers choose healthier diets when they pay by cash, or by debit card? U. S. Department of Agriculture researchers found several patterns among college students who were permitted to pay for their school cafeteria meals by (a) cash, (b) prepaid debit cards that could be used for any menu item or (c) prepaid debit cards that could be used for more healthful items only:

Payment method affected the amount they spent on meals. Those using cash spent more on average than those using restricted or unrestricted debit cards.
Payment method also affected the types of food chosen. Students paying with cash made healthier food choices than those with an unrestricted debit card. Those paying with a restricted debit card made the healthiest choices.

"In many cases, these differences were prominent and suggest that it is possible to change behavior by altering payment methods used for different foods," researchers concluded.

Citation: Behavioral economic concepts to encourage healthy eating
Posted at http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/ERR68

View vintage art (in farm magazines)

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 08:45:00 CDT

Recently we came across some striking art on farm magazine covers from the Golden Age of American illustration. They are featured online within the "Farm Magazines" gallery of the web site of MagazineArt.com. You can see vintage art on covers of the following farm magazines: Country Gentleman, Country Home, Farm Journal, Successful Farming and Better Fruit. Featured art appeared on covers of issues that were published between 1909 and 1934.

Posted at: http://www.magazineart.com/main.php/v/farm

Communicator activities approaching

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 08:30:00 CDT

May 17-19, 2009
"Parlez-vouz marketing?" Seminar of the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) in Montreal, Canada.
Information: http://www.aem.org/education/confsems/mc/index.asp

May 27-29, 2009
Fourth international conference on ICT for development, education and training in Dakar, Senegal.
Information: www.elearning-africa.com

June 13-16, 2009
"Branding communications with a kick." Annual Institute of the Cooperative Communicators Association (CCA) in Kansas City, Missouri USA.
Information: http://www.communicators.coop

Encouraging young photographers

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 08:15:00 CDT

You can view online a nice set of creative photographs taken during 2008 by members of the Missouri 4-H Photo Corps. This is an initiative of the 4-H office of the University of Missouri Extension. Rural Missouri magazine and several electric cooperatives supported the project by commenting on the 4-Hers' work and publishing photographs.

These young photographers were encouraged to try unique points of view in their photos, according to an article in Rural Missouri, "and they came through with shining colors."

Citation: Picturing Missouri
See the article and photos selected from more than 500 submissions at: http://www.ruralmissouri.coop/08pages/08Dec4HPhotoCorps.html

"Be persistent and have a thick skin."

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 10:00:00 CST

As livestock editor of Successful Farming magazine (U.S.), Betsy Freese has provided an interesting example of enterprise journalism. A feature posted recently on the web site of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) explained how she used her initiative to establish a highly read, nationally valued annual series known as "Pork Powerhouses." Information that she gathered and reported came from sources she identified, established and has maintained across the years.

You can learn how she came upon the idea and developed it, what challenges she faced, what satisfactions she found and what advice she offers for this entrepreneurial kind of agricultural reporting.

Posted at http://www.ifaj.org/professional-development/articles/be-persistent-and-have-a-thick-skin.html

Scientists listen to talking plants

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 09:45:00 CST

Here's another response you can use when friends ask if you, as an agricultural communicator, talk to plants or animals. We spotted it recently while searching for agricultural communications literature.

According to an article in the Jerusalem Post, Bar-Ilan University scientists have developed a way to detect and measure contamination in a body of water by "listening" to the sound that microscopic algae plants release into it.

"A plant suffering from lead poisoning for example, which comes from waste released by battery and paint manufacturing plants into water sources, will produce a different resonance than that of a healthy plant. The method enables early detection of penetrating contaminants and toxins that harm flora and fauna."

Citation: Talking plants tell scientists their water is contaminated
Posted at http://www.jpost.com > Site search: "talking plants"

Using local media creatively in rural areas

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 09:30:00 CST

Montana Journalism Review recently tackled the issue of rural coverage, using this theme: "The Challenges of Rural Journalism." Here are titles of the articles featured:

"The truth and other howlers: In the West's environmental wars, truth is often the first casualty"
"Cowflops and cowtowns: Urban journalist remembers rural stories and sagebrush survival"
"Peaks and valleys: Geography keeps the news away from rural Kyrgyzstan"
"Creating a news network: A team of University of Montana students and professors are building a new kind of journalism in the rural communities of Montana"
"Kids, cattle, grain, minerals and journalism: Community support keeping the signal alive at rural radio station"
"Introducing the nonprofit newspaper hybrid: The Corporation for Public Community Newspapers creates a new business model for hometown papers"

Citation: Challenges of rural journalism
You can read these articles posted at http://www.umt.edu/journalism/mjr/mjr2007.htm

And for you music lovers, we would call attention

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 09:15:00 CST

And for you music lovers, we would call attention to an online vocal performance that accompanied these articles about challenges in rural journalism.

You can hear the staff members of Montana Journalism Review sing "I've read every sheet" to a familiar tune, "I've been everywhere" by Geoff Mack. The poem, written "late one night" by Dennis Swibold of the journalism faculty, cites nearly 100 titles of newspapers in Montana.

"We were a little off," says a voice in the background after the song ends. Perhaps, but we think you may enjoy listening to it.

Posted at http://www.umt.edu/journalism/mjr/mjr2007/pages/toc.htm

Thanks for your thoughts about career preparation - and we welcome more

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 09:00:00 CST

Thanks to those who have kindly offered thoughts and suggestions about how to design an undergraduate agricultural journalism/communications program for the 21st Century. We welcome other suggestions as well about these and other aspects of such a program:

Communications skills in which undergraduate students in agricultural journalism/communications need to be most proficient.
Particular agricultural areas, if any, in which they need more schooling.
Whether they need to be educated in communications theory and research.

Please pass along your reactions and suggestions. Send them to evansj@illinois.edu. They will contribute to progress in this field of professional interest. Thank you.

Communicator activities approaching

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:45:00 CST

March 12-14, 2009
"Return. Rebuild. Renew." Spring meeting of the Agricultural Relations Council (ARC) in New Orleans, Louisiana USA.
Information: http://www.agrelationscouncil.org

May 17-19, 2009
"Parlez-vouz marketing?" Seminar of the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) in Montreal, Canada.
Information: http://www.aem.org/education/confsems/mc/index.asp

June 13-16, 2009
"Branding communications with a kick." Annual Institute of the Cooperative Communicators Association (CCA) in Kansas City, Missouri USA.
Information: http://www.communicators.coop

Just what the doctor ordered

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:30:00 CST

We close this issue of ACDC News with a printer's tale from the Agricultural Publishers Association Archives housed here at the University of Illinois. We are reviewing this APA collection, in search of information about trends, progress and issues in agricultural publishing across the decades.

Do you sense a kindred spirit here? In 1926, APA Executive Secretary V. F. Hayden reported:

"A printer received an inquiry from a surgeon who wanted bids on several thousand letterheads, different sizes, grades and colors, and he wanted the form held standing.

"The printer replied: 'Am in the market for one operation for appendicitis, one, two, or five inch incision, with or without ether; also with or without nurse. Quotations must include putting appendix back and canceling the order if found sound. Successful bidder is expected to hold incision open for sixty days, as I expect to be in the market for an operation for gall-stones, and I want to save the extra cost of cutting.'"

Punchy drought reporting

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 10:00:00 CST

"Jim Goodrich is, in a word, desperate. He's a rancher. He's used to being, well, concerned. Or worried. Or just dispatching a hard stare into an unforgiving sky. But being desperate is another thing. There's not a drop of cowboy romance in it."

With this lead, reporter Mike Littwin of the Rocky Mountain News described the plight of ranchers gripped by drought in southeastern Colorado. His entire article featured this punchy, graphic writing style, which you can review online.

Citation: For dry cowpunchers, a standing eight count
Article posted at: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/news_columnists/article/0,1299,DRMN_86_4830374,00.html

From journalism to corporate communication in post-war Britain

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 09:45:00 CST

That is the title of a chapter in Journalism, science and society, a recent book we have reviewed for the Center. Authors Martin W. Bauer and Jane Gregory note a change "from the state and 'public' technologies such as nuclear power and space exploration to the reporting of commercial and 'private' technologies such as biotechnology." They describe this as the "medicalization" of science news.

They also examine shifts and frictions between the traditionally skeptical professions (science and journalism) and public relations professions that "minimize controversy and a critical response."

Citation: From journalism to corporate communication
Check with us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu if you want to follow up on this resource.

An honored approach to covering the "local food" scene

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 09:30:00 CST

We learned recently of a husband-and-wife reporter team at the Anchorage Daily News that earned "News Gem" recognition for a fresh approach to reporting about local foods. In a four-part series, reporter Stephanie Komarnitsky and photographer Stephen Nowers shared with readers the experiences of their week trying to eat only locally grown and raised food.

Jon Marshall's "News Gems" are presented by the Society of Professional Journalists to highlight the best of American journalism.

Citation: Taste test
The four features in their series are posted at: http://www.adn.com/life/eating_local

Cooking up fresh insights about local foods

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 09:15:00 CST

A creative initiative, "Schools Harvest," in New South Wales, Australia, recently involved students, teachers, local producers, chefs and others in dramatizing the whole food supply chain. It was coordinated by staff from the Hawkesbury campus of the University of Western Sydney.

Area high school students provided vegetables and meats from their school plots.
Working with teachers and the head chef of a local hotel, they designed a special menu and provided waiters for the meal.
A community-based organization, Hawkesbury Harvest, also provided some fresh, seasonal produce.
On November 21 the students served their meal to 80 parents and teachers.

Thanks to Neil Inall of Roseville, Australia, for alerting us to this program.

Citation: Students cook up a treat for teachers and parents
Posted online at: http://web.library.uiuc.edu/asp/agx/acdc/hawk.pdf

We're gaining on it, Hadley

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 09:00:00 CST

"Nothing would please me more than to see all of our research reference materials filed in one place," long-time associate Hadley Read reported in a memo dated July 31, 1963. At that time Hadley was extension editor here at the University of Illinois.

We came across his memo last week among some historical references being added to the ACDC collection. It set off a nostalgia binge as we think about efforts here since then to help assemble agricultural communications literature, internationally, and make it available to those who can benefit from it.

Our year-end records show that the ACDC collection now contains more than 33,500 documents, including (we hope) those to which Hadley referred more than 45 years ago.

How would you design an undergraduate agricultural journalism/communications program for the 21st Century?

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 08:45:00 CST

Recently we were invited to offer thoughts and suggestions about this question, including several specific aspects:

Communications skills in which undergraduate students in agricultural journalism/communications need to be most proficient.
Particular agricultural areas, if any, in which they need more schooling.
.Whether they need to be educated in communications theory and research.

How would you respond to these questions? Please pass along your reactions and suggestions. Send them to evansj@illinois.edu. They will contribute to progress in this field of professional interest. Thank you.

Communicator activities approaching

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 08:30:00 CST

March 12-14, 2009
"Return. Rebuild. Renew." Spring meeting of the Agricultural Relations Council (ARC) in New Orleans, Louisiana USA.
Information: http://www.agrelationscouncil.org

May 17-19, 2009
"Parlez-vouz marketing?" Seminar of the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) in Montreal, Canada. Information: http://www.aem.org/education/confsems/mc/index.asp

June 13-16, 2009
"Branding communications with a kick." Annual Institute of the Cooperative Communicators Association (CCA) in Kansas City, Missouri USA.
Information: http://www.communicators.coop

"Not enough about popcorn!"

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 08:15:00 CST

That unexpected suggestion arrived recently from UK rural journalist Alan Stennett in response to our invitation for feedback. He was referring to a family popcorn project here, a labor of love in the tradition of Walker Evans, Jim's father. We hesitate to mention the project because:

It doesn't involve documents for the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center.

It's not a model of marketing communications in support of "value added" farming. (Most of the "value added" takes the form of free labor.)
It reflects use of no new media or advanced farming technologies.

However, it does represent a dimension of "professional development," an agricultural communicator's effort to enrich family experiences and stay close to the soil. If you would like to see what's involved in such an effort you can view a brief feature aired a couple years ago on public television station WILL-TV. The URL is: http://www.will.illinois.edu/prairiefire/segment/pf2006-02-23-b

Remembering the communicator's real business

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 10:00:00 CST

Thanks to Brad Schneller for alerting us to a commentary by Paul Berton in the London Free Press ( Ontario, Canada). In this piece, "Not if, but how, we'll deliver news," Berton addressed the influence of new media on the newspaper publishing business. "People have been talking for years about the death of newspapers," Berton noted, "and that may well be inevitable. But media companies will survive and thrive…" More news than ever is flowing, he observed, through a broadening assortment of channels. His point was that the future of newspapers may be unclear, but not the future of news.

Read the commentary posted at http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/Columnists/Berton_Paul/2008/12/20/7812321-sun.html

What about the agricultural media?

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 09:45:00 CST

Resources in the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center suggest that the same holds true in agricultural journalism. Searching the past century of information in this collection, you can find ample reason to agree with Paul Berton about keeping an eye not only on specific media but also on the communicator's real business. Following are a few among many examples, across the years, of documented threats and challenges to specific channels used for agricultural information.

(1906) Is the farm paper a has been?
(1938) How radio may modify the functions of the newspaper
(1955) Turmoil in magazines
(1963) Schaller heaps doom and gloom on farm publications
(1975) Farm broadcasting in transition

Naturally, these documents are not available online in full text. However, contact us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu if you wish to see any of them. All documents you identify in the ACDC database are available at the Center or elsewhere here in the University of Illinois Library system. That feature is special to a documentation center. We adopted it in ACDC, from the start, to add value for users.

A call for scientists to be advocates, not unbiased consultants

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 09:30:00 CST

Yes, you read that correctly. Authors of a recent article in the Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics argued against a two-stage process in which (a) scientists find out the facts, then (b) policy makers decide what to do with those facts. These two stages cannot be clearly separated, according to Stephen Haller and James Gerrie. They also confronted "the technocratic vision where decisions are best left up to the experts," -- where, for example, "scientists would deliver the final word on a policy about SARS, or mad cow, or whatever."

In their 27-page report, Haller and Gerrie suggested that when scientific claims enter the public policy realm, they must always do so in concert with value claims. In that ordinary process of democratic decision-making, scientists enter public policy debates as "participants in particular interest groups… rather than as supposedly unbiased consultants to decision-makers."

Citation: The role of science in public policy

How consumers react to food recalls

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 09:15:00 CST

Most Canadians changed their buying and eating behavior following a recall associated with listeria in ready-to-eat meats, according to a recent survey summary we have added to the ACDC collection. Among the findings of this survey by University of Guelph researchers:

30 percent said they stopped buying ready-to-eat meats from Canada.
27 percent reported eating less often at restaurants and fast-food outlets.
52 percent reported paying more attention to food labels.
32 percent reported cooking more food at home

About 70 percent of respondents said their perception of the safety of meat in general, of food products, and of food as a whole had not changed.

Citation: Consumers changing habits
Posted at http://www.uoguelph.ca/news/2008/12/post_157.html

Communications - among the top strategic challenges for U. S. agriculture

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 09:00:00 CST

A new report from the Farm Foundation examines issues agriculture and policy makers will face during the next 30 years in addressing the challenge of providing food, fiber and energy to a growing world. "Public understanding of agriculture" emerged as one of eight recurring themes vital to agriculture's strategic role. According to the report:

"Bridging the gap in understanding between agriculture and the broader public will be critical to the development of policies needed to meet the 30-year challenge."

Citation: The 30-year challenge
News release, executive summary and full report (53 pages) posted at: http://www.farmfoundation.org

Recognizing a new and "virtual" ACDC associate

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 08:45:00 CST

We are pleased to recognize and welcome Professor Steve Shenton as a volunteer staff associate in the Center. Based in Pennsylvania, he brings special interests and strengths in agricultural and rural aspects of free expression, public/civic journalism and community journalism.

Steve's work with the Center is not new as he has provided helpful documents and leads across the years. Nor is he a stranger to the agricultural communications program here at the University of Illinois. During his doctoral studies in communications in the Institute of Communications Research, he served as an outstanding graduate teaching assistant and for three years as an instructor in agricultural communications. His academic background includes studies in agriculture as well as communications. He served on the communications/journalism faculty and as its chair at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania for more than 26 years prior to his retirement. We value Steve's contributions to the Center and appreciate his willingness to contribute through his special expertise and interests.

Sharp eyes and ears for the world

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 08:30:00 CST

Please let us know if you would like to consider being a volunteer staff associate in this Center. Perhaps you can provide "eyes and ears" in search of information about agricultural journalism and agricultural communications - in your part of the world, or in your special area of communications interest. Why can't a global "virtual network" of dedicated ACDC associates cover more of this important world of interest without a huge budget? Contact Jim Evans at evansj@illinois.edu.

Communicator activities approaching

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 08:15:00 CST

March 12-14, 2009
"Return. Rebuild. Renew." Spring meeting of the Agricultural Relations Council (ARC) in New Orleans, Louisiana USA.
Information: http://www.agrelationscouncil.org

May 17-19, 2009
"Parlez-vouz marketing?" Seminar of the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) in Montreal, Canada.
Information: http://www.aem.org/education/confsems/mc/index.asp

June 13-16, 2009
"Branding communications with a kick." Annual Institute of the Cooperative Communicators Association (CCA) in Kansas City, Missouri USA.
Information: http://www.communicators.coop

Photographing - yes - bee beards

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 08:00:00 CST

Some of the most interesting agricultural photographs we have seen recently involve "bee beards" growing in Canada. Agri Digest Online, based in British Columbia, posted five eye-catching photos taken at a recent conference of the Western Apicultural Society of North America. These photos featured several brave souls (including a broadcaster) who demonstrated how honey bees can form live beards.

Citation: Bee beards in Victoria, B.C.
View these photos at http://www.agridigest.com/index.html#pol > Scroll to Agri Gallery

The calf rarely brands itself.

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 10:00:00 CST

A recent article in Economic Development Journal used that rural analogy to caution readers about the popular concept of branding.

"What others say about you - not what you say about yourself - will build your brand," author Andy Levine emphasized. He offered four other "against-the-grain recommendations to consider and share with the 'powers that be' within your community."

Be different - really different.
A logo is NOT a strategy.
Find the right balance between the external customer and the internal customer.
The single, over-arching brand with a single, coordinated marketing message consistently fails.

Citation: The calf rarely brands itself
Posted at http://www.ussourcelink.com/_FileLibrary/FileImage/2/EDJ_winter08.pdf

Congratulations to pioneering agricultural communications students

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:45:00 CST

A news report from the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, announced graduation during December of the first class of students in a new agricultural communications diploma program. Seven graduates completed this 16-month, five-course program. It was offered by distance through the Ontario Agricultural College and the Office of Open Learning. Owen Roberts served as academic coordinator.

Citation: First University of Guelph agricultural communications students graduate
Information about the program is posted online at http://www.agcommunications.ca

Really managing information to market specialized farm products

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:30:00 CST

Niche production and marketing is moving to a higher level and well-managed information is a vital ingredient for progress.

"…a lack of reliable information at all stages along the supply chain is a severe limitation to the development of differentiated products, in spite of the existence of modern information technology," explained the authors of a recent article in Computers and Electronics in Agriculture. These researchers at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture ( Cali, Colombia) and University of Klagenfurt ( Austria) described a prototype internet-based information system for high value agricultural products. Known as the Coffee Information System (CINFO), it provides information about:

The production environment and practices used by coffee growers in individual management units.
The quality of individual lots of coffee.
Movement of coffee from the individual lots along the supply chain to end users.

"The initial results already indicate tangible benefits for all members of the supply chain and hence the future potential of CINFO or similar platforms," these authors reported.

Citation: Information and its management for differentiation of agricultural products
Check with us (docctr@library.uiuc.edu) for information about full-text access.

Rural citizens without broadband - less access to public services

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:15:00 CST

Recent research in Montana revealed civic disadvantages facing rural residents that lack access to broadband telecommunications services. Researcher Richard S. Wolff of Montana State University identified problems arising from lack of broadband services in rural Montana counties, as compared with metro counties. Disadvantages included lack of online access for:

Completion and submission of permit applications, business licenses
Requests for local government records
Requests for government services, such as pothole repair
Forms that can be downloaded for manual completion (e.g., voter registration)
Council agendas and minutes
Employment information and applications

Thanks to Steve Shenton, Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, for calling attention to this resource.

Citation: Citizen access to democracy hurting in rural America
Posted at: http://www.commonblog.com/story/2008/11/24/112053/11

Remarkable view of communications consulting abroad

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:00:00 CST

We are grateful to Dr. K. Robert Kern for contributing to the ACDC collection a copy of his new memoir, At Work in the Wider World: A Memoir of Work and Travel on Five Continents. It describes his experiences working abroad in 46 countries between early 1945 and late 2002. Many of those experiences took place after he retired from an active career at Iowa State University, much of it in agricultural extension communications.

His consulting work often centered on analyzing and helping strengthen communications in local, national and international programs of agricultural research and development. It offers the most vivid, detailed account we can recall having seen about life, travels and experiences of an agricultural communications consultant working abroad.

Citation: At work in the wider world

What's that again? Encouraging farmers to protect their hearing

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 08:45:00 CST

Noise-induced hearing loss is the second most frequent self-reported occupational illness or injury in the U.S., according to a recent article in the Journal of Applied Communication Research. Authors reported that an estimated 10 percent of U.S. farm workers are exposed to high-risk noise levels.

This research report identifies some useful guidelines for communicating with farmers, landscapers and other rural workers about protecting their hearing.

Citation: Using the EPPM to create and evaluate the effectiveness of brochures
Available for online purchase via http://www.informaworld.com > Search on title

Communicator activities approaching

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 08:30:00 CST

January 19, 2009
Deadline for submitting abstracts for presentations at the 7th World Congress of Computers in Agriculture and Natural Resources to take place June 22-24 in Reno, Nevada USA.
Information: www.wcca2009.org

January 20-22, 2009
Knowledge "Share Fair" to showcase examples of good knowledge sharing practices in agricultural development and food security. Hosted by five international agencies and held at the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Rome, Italy.
Information: www.sharefair.net

Where's the colorful rural language these days?

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 08:15:00 CST

Columnist Lee Pitts raised that issue in a recent commentary in Farm World. He observed that with "all the political correctness running rampant in our society, I think the writing in our world has greatly deteriorated."

For example, in the wild, wild West people weren't put to sleep or laid to rest. "They bit the dust, went on their last roundup or circled the drain."
When western writers described a bucking bronc sending the rider asunder they didn’t say the horse received a negative feedback loop. "…they said the cowboy chewed gravel or kissed the ground."
"If the cowboy of yesteryear fell in love, he wasn't emotionally involved; he got Cupid's cramps or calico fever."
"Some agrarian product specialists (farmers) are not in a drought but only in a water deficit situation. I bet that cheers them up."

You get the idea. Please pass along to us any other examples of what Pitts described as "painting every word with a different color." Send them to docctr@library.uiuc.edu

Citation: Adjectives in the old days

Breakdown in risk communicating - a confusing grab bag

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 10:00:00 CST

A research report and news release we added recently from the Produce Safety Project emphasized how "the nation's food-safety system continues to be plagued by issues of capacity, competence and coordination." This analysis, reported from Georgetown University, focused on last summer's Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak that caused illnesses in more than 1,400 persons across the nation.

It documented "dueling" public health messages from various agencies announcing the outbreak. Get unified risk communications plans in place before an outbreak, the report emphasized.

News release: Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak exposes food safety weaknesses
Posted at http://www.producesafetyproject.org/admin/assets/files/0017.pdf

Report: Breakdown: lessons to be learned from the 2008 Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak
Posted at http://www.producesafetyproject.org/admin/assets/files/0015.pdf

Agricultural editor asks: "Is it my job to reach the consumer?"

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 09:45:00 CST

Holly Martin, president of the American Agricultural Editors' Association and editor of High Plains Journal, raised that question in a recent issue of AAEA ByLine newsletter.

"No," she replied. "I believe ag media should take a different tack. My role is not to speak to consumers about the importance of agriculture. My role is to speak to agriculture producers about the importance of consumers.

The author suggested that no one tells a story better than the person who experiences it. "No matter how eloquent, my words retelling a farmer's story would never carry the weight and impact of a farmer speaking directly to consumers."

Title: What is our role?
Posted at http://www.ageditors.com

Sorting fact and opinion in GM reporting

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 09:30:00 CST

A recent commentary added to the body of argument that the world should rely on experts with good credentials to evaluate the safety of genetically modified (GM) crops and food. Robert Wager of Vancouver Island University, Canada, argued that the media "can, of course, add words of caution from critics. But it must be clear which opinions come from detailed knowledge and training, and which may be driven by other agendas."

The author offered these suggestions to journalists:

Talk to people trained in the field of agri-biotechnology "who actually know what the real issues are."
Consult regulators. "Many countries have tight regulations on food production to ensure public safety."
"…stop presenting claims that we know nothing about the long-term hazards as being unique to GM foods."

Title: GM reporting should rely on real expertise
Posted at http://www.scidev.net/en/editor-letters/gm-reporting-should-rely-on-real-expertise.html

Unique role of the Ag Com Documentation Center

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 09:15:00 CST

In matters such as communicating about biotechnology for food and agriculture, we in this Center use an "honest broker" approach. That is, we value, collect and provide information and perspectives of all kinds, and from all voices surrounding an issue. If you conduct a Subject search in the ACDC search system, using the term "biotechnology," you will find a surprisingly diverse mixture of documents and views. They range from books and peer-reviewed, scientific literature to editorials, commentaries and news releases from interest groups.

Why would we do so? Because experience shows that opinions and hunches sometimes prove to be as important as science in the world of personal and social decision making. In that spirit, this Center - as a public library resource - aims to increase understanding and improve human communicating and decision making by helping users "tune in" on all voices about this complex subject (and hundreds of others).

KFC - not just a chicken restaurant (in Asia)

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 09:00:00 CST

In a recent book, International public relations, Patricia A. Curtin and T. Kenn Gaither described how Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) has "set a record for fast food chain development in China since opening its first store in Beijing, China, in 1987." Colonel Sanders in China, Malaysia, India, and the rest of Asia looks the same as the Colonel in the United States, the authors explained. However, they identified some dimensions of this campaign that embed KFC into cultures different from the one in which it originated. We are adding this case report to the ACDC collection.

Title: International public relations
Check with us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu if you want to follow up on it for teaching or other uses.

Honoring the potato through beautiful photography

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 08:45:00 CST

Year 2008 is the International Year of the Potato and skilled photographers have provided an inspiring global view of this valuable food through their entries in the World Photography Contest. Winners were announced recently by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, coordinator of the year-long campaign.

Entries, which came from professional and amateur photographers in 90 countries, illustrated the many roles played by the potato in agriculture, the economy, food security, society and culture. In the award-winning photos you will see images that feature biodiversity, cultivation, processing, trade, marketing, consumption and use of potatoes throughout the world.

View the winning photos at http://www.potato2008.org/en/photocontest/index.html

Communicator activities approaching

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 08:30:00 CST

A new frontier in animal communications and genetics

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 08:15:00 CST

We close this issue of ACDC News with a mischievous gremlin that sneaked into a recent issue of University of Chicago Magazine. An alumnus reported having taken a driving safari in South Africa with friends and offspring. One highlight: "seeing vultures and lions mating."

In the Letters section of the following issue a sharp-eyed reader asked: "Will the results of this union look anything like the gryphon on the Cobb Hall archway near Botany Pond?"

Giving consumers a lively look at their local food sources

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 10:00:00 CST

Thanks to Warren Clark of CCI Marketing for calling our attention to some innovative agricultural television programming in California. It comes from an "Eye on the Bay" series hosted by Liam Mayclem of KPIX-TV, San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose. You can view online the lively approach he and his associates used in their October 7 program about beekeeping, family dairy farming, olive ranching and organic egg production in that region.

Posted at http://cbs5.com/video/?id=40196@kpix.dayport.com. Use the site search system, entering this title: "Farms and Ranches"

"Chicken Soup" advertisement proves a winner

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 09:45:00 CST

An agricultural advertisement known as "Chicken Soup" was the winner during October of national honors in the Creative Excellence in Business Advertising (CEBA) awards program. This ad, created for Pfizer Animal Health by Martin Williams Advertising, Minneapolis, Minnesota, placed first in the category of single ads of one page or less in a program with an annual budget up to $100,000. It featured the headline: "If chicken soup did the trick, we wouldn't be talking."

The ad, which ran in selected farm periodicals, was part of a campaign that also earned radio honors earlier this year in the National Agri-Marketing Association "Best of NAMA" recognition program.

Title: Cowboy wisdom hits the airwaves
View the ad and campaign information online at http://www.martinwilliams.com/showcase/PfizerAH/

Will ICT only widen the digital divide?

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 09:30:00 CST

"Pessimists who claim ICT [information and communication technologies] will increase still further the divergence between rich and poor countries are misinformed," according to a representative of the United Nations Capital Development Fund. In a 2006 analysis that we added recently to the ACDC collection Adam Rogers, head of communications and public information for UNCDF, pointed to progress being made.

He also argued that these technologies are most effectively leveraged when:

The focus is on poverty alleviation and not on ICT itself (the task, not the tool).
ICT components are kept simple, relevant, practical and local.
ICT practitioners are involved in the design of ICT strategies.
There is significant community involvement.
New solutions are built on what is already in place.
There is a focus on training to ensure success and sustainability.
There is a plan to replicate and scale up the project if it is successful.

Title: ICT will ultimately bridge the digital and poverty divides
Posted at http://www.uncdf.org

Seeing genetically modified crops through different lenses

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 09:15:00 CST

"Developing" and "developed" countries see GM crops through importantly different lenses, according to a meta-analysis of seven databases containing 43 studies about mass media coverage, public knowledge and attitudes toward GM crops. Researchers Eric Abbott and Lulu Rodriguez also found complex differences among "developing" countries. They offered three recommendations for agricultural communicators who are preparing messages for audiences in any country:

Beware of generalizations about GM crops across countries or continents.
Be cautious about embracing results of hypothetical studies asking consumers whether or not they would buy GM foods (either directly, or if they were priced more cheaply, or had a specific benefit or risk).
Strive to help mass media balance the dialogue about GM crops.

Title: Genetically modified crops in developing countries
For full-text access, contact lead author at eabbott@iastate.edu

The Farmer Field School approach helps Danish dairy farmers

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 09:00:00 CST

The FFS approach to agricultural improvement involves a process in which farmers share and use their own knowledge and experience to solve problems they are encountering. It is used widely in agricultural development programs. And recently we added to the ACDC collection a case example in Farmers Weekly ( UK) about how FFS helped Danish dairy producers reduce their use of antibiotics.

"Over a period of one year, four farmer groups, each consisting of approximately six farmers, set to task. Each month, each group met on a different farm to discuss a particular problem that had been identified by the host farmer. Through a process of discussion and examination of farm records, aided by the presence of a facilitator, the groups were successful in reducing antibiotic usage by approximately 50%, with no discernible negative impact on health and welfare and a tangible improvement in the farm environment."

Title: Farmer Field School approach halves antibiotic use in dairy cattle
Posted at: www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2008/03/07/109270/farmer-field-school-approach-halves-antibiotic-use-in-dairy.html

Boosting knowledge and easing concerns about food irradiation

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 08:45:00 CST

An Extension team in Texas used experiential learning techniques that increased knowledge levels and reduced negative perceptions among participants in a short course. We added this report recently from a recent issue of the Journal of Extension.

Participants in the short course at Texas A&M University included food safety regulators, Extension educators, a food processor and port authority staff member. Here are some of the experiential learning methods used:

Presentations by experts
Tours
Group discussions
Taste tests
Radioactive exposure tests

Title: Increasing positive perceptions of food irradiation
Posted at http://www.joe.org/joe/2008august/rb3.shtml

Communicator activities approaching

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 08:30:00 CST

Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 08:15:00 CST

That sentiment remains strong in the minds of many Americans, according to a recent national survey by the Wildlife Conservation Society. Findings showed that:

Less than 10 percent understood how many bison remain in the United States.
More than 74 percent believe that bison are an extremely important living symbol of the American West.
More than half view the bison as a symbol of America as a whole.

Posted at http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-11/wcs-nns111808.php

Helping close a black hole in communications for development

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 10:00:00 CDT

Sometimes, as we scout for information, we come across fresh insights about our mission in the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center. Here is an insight from two communications faculty members in Peru. They were writing in the Communication for Social Change Report:

"We have found that there is an insurmountable void, a kind of black hole that the rationality of communicational diagnosis has actually prevented from closing: the creative connection between research in the form of diagnosis and/or baselines, and the communication strategies derived from such research."

We hope that, through this Center, we are helping strengthen connections between research and practice in the world of agriculture-related journalism and communications.

Title: Developing a unique proposal for communication for development in Latin America
Posted at http://www.communicationforsocialchange.org/mazi.php?id=6

Food safety more worrying than national security

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 09:45:00 CDT

Results of a survey during May among 42,000 Korean adults revealed more concern about food safety than about war, nuclear risks and other national security issues.

Worry about contaminated food and food poisoning topped the list of food safety concerns. "Public awareness of food safety has grown since the resumption of U.S. beef imports became a social issue…Given the melamine scare, however, Korean concern over food safety is expected to remain high."
Increasing dependence on food imports also ranked high. Eighty-seven percent said they were worried about imported farm produce, compared with only 40 percent concerned over the safety of domestic farm produce.

Posted at http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?biid=2008101844698

How the "frankenfood" metaphor has been used on the Web

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 09:30:00 CDT

You can find an informative analysis of this metaphor in an article by Iina Hellsten in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. Hellsten followed the development of "frankenfood" over time (beginning in 1992), then mapped ways in which the term was used on various Web sites.

"The Frankenstein food metaphor is interesting because of its clear life-cycle on the Web," the author concluded. Also, it served different functions for different discourses:

It was useful in evoking emotions that could be transformed into action against genetic manipulation in food production.
For participants in the newsgroups it effectively gave a name to these concerns.
In the newspaper, it provided a catchy and concise way of talking about the politicized issue.

Title: Focus on metaphors: the case of "Frankenfood" on the Web
Posted at http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol8/issue4/hellsten.html

Fish communicating - by glowing bright red

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 09:15:00 CDT

Certain fish are capable of glowing red, according to research reported recently in BMC Ecology. Nico Michiels, from the University of Tübingen, Germany, and associates identified at least 32 reef fish species that fluoresced visibly in red.

"We believe red fluorescence may be part of a private communication system in fish," the authors speculate.

Title: Fantastic photographs of fluorescent fish
You can see a summary of the report, along with sample photos, at: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-09/bc-fpo091208.php

Much room for improvement in farm safety photography

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 09:00:00 CDT

That's the message from results of an analysis of safety-related photographs in three popular U.S. farm periodicals. According to findings reported earlier this year in the Journal of Agricultural Safety and Health:

Only 56.7 percent of the published photos illustrated best practices for safety.
Among the photos that included children, only 18.5 percent depicted best practices.
Photographs in advertisements illustrated best practices 56.5 percent of the time.

"Editors, photo-journalists, and advertisers should take every opportunity to promote safety in this high-risk industry through portrayal of safe work practices and safe work environments in photographs that are used in farm periodicals," the authors concluded.

Abstract at http://www.unboundmedicine.com/medline/ebm/journal/J_Agric_Saf_Health
Check with us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu for help in gaining full-text access.

Honored rural columnist tells how she writes for metro audiences

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 08:45:00 CDT

Angela Goode of South Australia recently offered 27 years of tips and perspectives on her efforts to improve public understanding of agriculture. Based on a rural property, Angela has written a popular weekly column for The Advertiser newspaper, Adelaide. She was honored earlier this year as the inaugural Rural Icon by Rural Media South Australia.

You can read her report and some of her recent columns in a feature she provided to the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ).

Title: Reporting on agriculture in metropolitan media
Posted at http://www.ifaj.org

Communicator activities approaching

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 08:30:00 CDT

November 12-14, 2008
"Making waves, lifting tides." Annual conference of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting (NAFB) in Kansas City, Missouri USA.
Information: www.nafb.com

Another model headline for livestock editors.

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 08:15:00 CDT

We close this issue of ACDC News with another supposedly-actual headline that has been floating around the internet. At least it touches on matters that livestock journalists might cover. Thanks to Burt Swanson for alerting us to it:

"Panda mating fails; veterinarian takes over"

Great laments in rural-urban relations

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 10:00:00 CDT

That's the title of a new analysis about why rural-urban dialogue often goes missing, or astray - and why reporters have a hard time understanding and contributing to it. Writing for the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists, Owen Roberts ( University of Guelph) and Jim Evans ( University of Illinois) dug into four types of hurdles and roadblocks that reporters encounter:

Technical and practical challenges (for example, rural-urban issues becoming more scientifically complex.)
Values at stake (for example, bumping up against traditions, past experiences, environmental preferences and values in conflict.)
Legal, political and regulatory challenges (for example, when no clear rules relate to an issue.)
Hurdles in the world of independent commercial journalism (for example, news of the day overwhelming media attention to longer-term issues.)

You will find more than 35 hurdles and roadblocks identified in this second feature in the authors' series on improving rural-urban coverage. They welcome your help in adding to that list.

Title: Great laments in rural-urban relations
Posted at http://www.ifaj.org/news/Urban_rural_relations.pdf
Author contacts: Roberts at owen@uoguelph.ca and Evans at evansj@illinois.edu

Landmark report on agricultural knowledge, science and technology for development

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 09:45:00 CDT

"The way the world grows its food will have to change radically to better serve the poor and hungry if the world is to cope with a growing population and climate change while avoiding social breakdown and environmental collapse."

That overview introduced a major report, International assessment of agricultural knowledge, science and technology for development, released in April by the United Nations Environment Programme. More than 400 scientists, worldwide, prepared this massive study. And communications was cited as a key ingredient to success.

"Investment directed toward securing the public interest in agricultural science, education and training and extension to farmers has decreased at a time when it is most needed," the report stated. It emphasized getting farmers (small and otherwise) engaged more actively and using their local knowledge. You can learn more about the report at:

http://www.unep.org > Search on document title
http://www.leisa.info > Search on document title

No magic bullets for encouraging soil conservation

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 09:30:00 CDT

One might think there are certain keys to encouraging farmers to adopt practices that conserve soil. Not so, according to findings reported in the journal, Food Policy. Researchers Duncan Knowler and Ben Bradshaw analyzed some 130 studies conducted globally about farmers' adoption of conservation agriculture.

"…the primary finding of the synthesis is that there are few if any universal variables that regularly explain the adoption of conservation agriculture across past analyses."

Their best advice? Tailor your conservation efforts to reflect the particular conditions of individual locales. That's a call for the help of effective communicators.

Title: Adoption of conservation agriculture

Farm groups are getting secretive

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 09:15:00 CDT

"Farm groups are getting secretive," observed John Greig, editor of Ontario Farmer ( Canada), in an editorial last month. He cited recent examples of meetings and conferences being closed to media by some commodity groups and the Ontario Federation of Agriculture.

"Agriculture decision-making in Ontario is moving underground at a rapid pace, and few people have noticed," he said, adding that it is "a scary day for democracy when those elected by a constituency are afraid to tell those who elected them what they believe." He explained that when meetings are closed to the media farmers will not get the information they can use to help plan their businesses and figure out how rural society works in relation to their families and properties.

Title: Farm groups are getting secretive
Posted at: http://web.library.uiuc.edu/asp/agx/acdc/greig.pdf

Those rural community weeklies - a model for today's "hyperlocal" media strategies

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 09:00:00 CDT

When Rob Curley helped create hyperlocal news coverage for the Washington Post he used a model based on his childhood memories of how local newspapers served his family in rural Kansas.

"The nature of local journalism has not changed significantly in many years," Curley explained in a recent article in Nieman Reports. He suggested that some enduring guidelines cut across audiences, formats - even the use of new online media.

Posted at http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/07-4NRwinter/p53-curley.html

Welcome to a new student associate

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 08:45:00 CDT

The ACDC would like to welcome Chelsey Waltz as a new student associate to the Center. Chelsey grew up in the small farming community of LeRoy, Illnois. As a high school student, she took agriculture classes and participated in the FFA. She is now a sophomore in agricultural communications at the University of Illinois. She chose her major because reading and writing are her strong suits and she wanted to combine a communications degree with another subject she was interested in. During her time at the Center, Chelsey hopes to gain experience doing research and journalism related to agricultural communications.

Online news services. Recent? Wait a minute

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 08:30:00 CDT

They have been evolving for more than 160 years, according to an analysis by An Nguyen in First Monday, a peer-reviewed journal on the Internet. This fascinating pre-Web evolution includes the telegraph, telephone, audiotext, teletext, videotext and other online venues.

Agricultural information services, internationally, have been an important part of this history. You can identify hundreds of documents about agricultural uses of them by going to the ACDC search page and conducting "Subject" searches on those terms.

Article posted at http://firstmonday.org > Search on the title, "Interaction between technologies and society"

Communicator activities approaching

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 08:15:00 CDT

November 12-14, 2008
"Making waves, lifting tides." Annual conference of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting (NAFB) in Kansas City, Missouri USA.
Information: www.nafb.com

No, the lexophiles (lovers of words) aren't finished yet

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 08:00:00 CDT

Thanks to Donald Schwartz for restocking our collection of words at play. Among the expressions, we look especially for those that touch on the themes of interest to ACDC - food, agriculture, communicating and decision making. With due apologies, here we go again:

She had a boyfriend with a wooden leg, but broke it off.
Local Area Network in Australia: the LAN down under.
Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.

Whew. Have you seen other examples of "words at play" for the ACDC collection?

Bad news about readership of food nutrition labels

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 10:00:00 CDT

A new report we have added from the Economic Research Service of the U. S. Department of Agriculture paints a discouraging picture of label-reading during the past decade. Consumers reduced their readership of most label components between 1995-96 and 2005-06. For example:

Readership of the ingredient list dropped 11 percent.
Readership about calories, fat, cholesterol and sodium dropped 10 percent.
Only the use of information about fiber and sugars did not decline.

Planners say they need to review the standardized nutrition labeling that went into effect in 1994 - and review their information campaign approach.

Full 32-page report posted at http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/err63

Adapting new information technologies to local languages

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 09:45:00 CDT

A recent article by Don Osborn described an effort to help make information more accessible to people throughout Africa. There are, by estimate, more than 2,000 African languages. Discussions during 2004 led to a new Pan-African Localization (PAL) project. It began during 2005 to enhance the localization of technology in Africa, with particular emphasis on development and education.

Information technology is not the only complexity in this process, according to Osborn. Part of the challenge is "overcoming an apparent mindset that adding a new African language capacity to computers somehow detracts from the existing one, usually English or French."

Title: Localizing languages
Posted at http://ictupdate.cta.int/en/feature_articles/localizing_languages

How Vietnam consumers responded to early avian influenza outbreaks

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 09:30:00 CDT

In January 2004, Vietnam became the first country to report H5N1 to the World Organization for Animal Health. Researchers M. Figuié and T. Fournier examined the perceptions and reactions of Hanoi consumers during four outbreaks of 2004-2005. Their findings, reported recently in Risk Analysis, revealed that consumers reacted quickly and intensely to stop eating poultry. However, they resumed again when the crisis abated.

"Perceived control of AI has been shown to determine the behavior of Vietnamese consumers with regard to poultry consumption," the authors concluded. They offered suggestions about implications for risk communication efforts.

Title: Avian influenza in Vietnam

Sheep may, indeed, never seem the same

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 09:15:00 CDT

Sheep may, indeed, never seem the same in the minds of those who have seen artist Jean Luc Cornec's "telephone sheep." Thanks to Steve Shenton for alerting us to a creative art project that fits the interests of agricultural journalists and communicators. The artist has created a flock of sheep made entirely of recycled telephones and curly phone cables. They have been displayed at the Federal Postal Museum and the Museum for Communications in Frankfurt Main, Germany.

Images are on various Web sites, but you can find a selection of photos of the flock at:
http://www.lifeinthefastlane.ca/3-incredible-artists-using-intriguing-techniques/art
Scroll to the third section that features these sheep.

Why extension agents hesitate to use a Web-based resource

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 09:00:00 CDT

Since 2006 county extension agents in the U. S. have had access to eXtension. It is a repository of multimedia learning modules based on research conducted by land-grant universities. We recently added to the ACDC collection the report of a survey by Amy Harder and James R. Lindner shedding light on barriers that may affect agents' decisions to use this resource. Here are some of the potential barriers they see:

Lack of time to learn about it, fit it into their job responsibilities and respond to online requests.
Lack of incentives for using the resource and contributing to it.
Financial concerns about buying and supporting needed technologies, promoting the resource locally and sharing revenue with multiple partnering institutions.
Planning issues such as lack of opportunities to learn about the resource and lack of shared vision for the role of eXtension.
Technology concerns, including loss of face-to-face contact with clientele, lack of technical support and training programs, and loss of local control of extension information.

Title: Perceived barriers to the adoption of a Web-based resource
For full-text access, contact the lead author at amharder@ufl.edu

Agricultural journalism: Are they playing our tune again?

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 08:45:00 CDT

A recent question from Masaru Yamada, agricultural journalist associate in Japan, has stirred our thinking about trends in journalism education. In the United States (and perhaps elsewhere) journalism education began with specialized journalism, such as agricultural, technical, home economics and engineering. Then journalism education shifted to a philosophy that a good journalist can cover any subject.

Now, we see increasing need for journalists who understand the complexities of subjects they cover as well as the principles and skills of effective reporting. Why? As various subject areas expand in size, internationalize and become more complex and fast-changing, we can expect to see more specialized journalists and communicators. In fact, we already are seeing evidence. Notice how many specialized journalist associations have formed around areas as diverse as health care, jazz, ethnic interests, religious interests, business, environment, snow sports, military, crime, HIV/AIDS and gender.

Your thoughts? Examples? Please pass them along to us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu

Communicator activities approaching

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 08:30:00 CDT

October 1, 2008
Deadline for submission of papers for the Agricultural Communication Section of the 2009 conference of the Southern Association of Agricultural Scientists.
Information: http://agnews.tamu.edu/saas > "Call for Papers for 2009 meeting"

October 2-4, 2008
"Growing beyond the ordinary." Annual conference of the Canadian Farm Writers' Federation (CFWF) to take place in Courtenay, British Columbia.br /> Information: www.cfwf.ca

October 15-18, 2008
Annual conference of the Association of Food Journalists in Houston, Texas USA.
Information: www.afjonline.com

November 12-14, 2008
"Making waves, lifting tides." Annual conference of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting (NAFB) in Kansas City, Missouri USA.
Information: www.nafb.com

Great job of selling livestock

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 08:15:00 CDT

We close this issue of ACDC News with a market report that agricultural columnist Lee Pitts described in a recent issue of Farm World. It seems that an associate on his newspaper staff once transposed an auction market report in a way that resulted in the following sentence:

"We will continue to have sales semi-weakly throughout the summer."

New campaign for local gardening (at the White House)

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 10:00:00 CDT

A recent article we added to the ACDC collection from the Boston Globe described a campaign to get a kitchen garden growing on the White House lawn. Author Ellen Goodman explained that Roger Doiron of Kitchen Gardeners International "is pushing for edible landscapes everywhere from schoolyards to governor's mansions to empty urban plots. But Doiron set his eyes on everybody's house, the White House." His campaign urges the presidential candidates to pledge they'll turn a piece of the 18-acre White House terrain into an edible garden.

Actually, Doiron argues, this will be a return rather than something new.

John Adams, the first president to live in the White House, had a garden to feed his family.
Woodrow Wilson had a Liberty Garden and sheep grazing during World War I.
The Roosevelts had a Victory Garden during World War II.

Title: Growing at the White House
Posted at http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped

The darker side of recent developments in communications

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 09:45:00 CDT

A background paper for the World Congress on Communication for Development identified several new issues and challenges in the past decade. They relate to global liberalization of media, rapid economic and social changes, and emergence of new information and communication technologies. What does this mean for those living in many rural areas? The report suggested:

Liberalization of media "has led not only to greater media freedoms, but also to the emergence of an increasingly consumer led and urban centered communication infrastructure, which is less and less interested in the concerns of the poor."
A general global trend towards greater media freedom sometimes "has been confined largely to urban metropolitan middle classes rather than the population as a whole."
Women and other vulnerable groups - and rural populations in general - "continue to suffer marginalization in and from communication networks, and evidence of the scale of discrimination within the media itself is growing."

Title: Communication for sustainable development
Posted at: http://www.fao.org/sd/dim_kn1/docs/kn1_060602d1_en.pdf

Impact of the farm press

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 09:30:00 CDT

Hal Taylor, former deputy director of communications for the U. S. Department of Agriculture, recently passed along this report.

"Years ago when I ramrodded commercial interests for the USDA Centennial, the USDA historian Wayne Rasmussen told me there wouldn't have been much interest ever in agriculture as a possible cabinet department had it not been for the pressures brought on by the agricultural press which was quite active in the Philadelphia area in the late 1700s. Rasmussen also was quite interested in the organization then called "AAACE" and often said it was really an off-shoot of the 1790s when interests were so high in getting a cabinet office established. Finally, as you know, Abe Lincoln got the cabinet office planned and a Secretary was named as a cabinet officer a few years later."

We appreciate this piece of history about influences of the farm press and welcome other examples or references you may be able to provide. Send them to us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu.

Teaching a fresh view of "outsourcing" and international cooperation

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 09:00:00 CDT

Think about this. Students in a Midwestern U. S. university class on computers and community were assigned to experience being offshore web-designers for a handloom weaver located in rural South India. Furthermore, the students had no prior knowledge about computer programming or website construction.

This innovative assignment helped students gain a fresh perspective on who is "developed" and how to communicate and operate across cultures. Radhika Gajjala (in the U. S.) and Annapurna Mamidipudi (in India) were the collaborating teachers. They reported on their project at a meeting of the World Forum on Information Society.

Title: Who is "developed" and who is not?
Abstract posted at http://www.irfd.org/events/wf2005/abstracts_t15.htm

How rural Americans are perceived

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 08:45:00 CDT

Rural Americans are most often perceived as extremes, according to a campaign-oriented video from the Center for Rural Strategies. The Center, located at Whitesburg, Kentucky, is a communications organization that seeks to improve rural life by increasing public understanding about the importance and value of rural communities.

You can view the brief presentation at: www.ruralstrategies.org/campaign/images/flash.swf

The growing angst in rural-urban relations

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 08:30:00 CDT

Agricultural journalists around the globe are facing an expanding menu of rural-urban issues to cover, according to a recent analysis. Owen Roberts, University of Guelph, and Jim Evans of the ACDC staff sketched this challenge in a recent issue of IFAJ eNews from the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists. They identified more than 100 rural-urban issues calling for coverage in categories such as these:

Differences in what people know and believe
Lifestyle issues
Equity issues
Infrastructure issues
Natural resource issues
Policy issues
Property rights and wealth distribution issues

Title: The growing angst in rural-urban relations
You can review the feature online at http://www.ifaj.org/news/IFAJWebFeatureAngst05%2008_or.pdf

Communicator activities approaching

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 08:15:00 CDT

September 10-14, 2008
"From the mountains to the sea." 2008 Congress of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) to take place in Austria and Slovenia.
Information: www.ifaj2008.com

October 2-4, 2008
"Growing beyond the ordinary." Annual conference of the Canadian Farm Writers' Federation (CFWF) to take place in Courtenay, British Columbia.
Information: www.cfwf.ca

October 15-18, 2008
Annual conference of the Association of Food Journalists in Houston, Texas USA.
Information: www.afjonline.com

November 12-14, 2008
"Making waves, lifting tides." Annual conference of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting (NAFB) in Kansas City, Missouri USA.
Information: www.nafb.com

More groaners from the lexophiles (lovers of words)

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 08:00:00 CDT

We close this issue of ACDC News with yet another set of head-shaking insights that touch on food, agriculture and communications. Are you ready?

Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.
A backward poet writes inverse.
To write with a broken pencil is pointless.
When fish are in schools, they sometimes take debate.

Can you add to this sad collection? Send them to us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu.

Meteorologists need communicator help?

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 10:00:00 CDT

"There are good theoretical arguments for expecting seasonal forecasts to be valuable for agriculture," say the authors of a new article in the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology. They explain, however, why such forecasts are still the subject of considerable controversy. Authors recommend ways to improve the reliability of forecasts, including more use of qualitative social science methods "for understanding the determinants of information use and value."

In so doing, they open the door for communications researchers and professionals to collaborate with climatologists in adding economic value to forecasting efforts.

Title: Economic value of seasonal climate forecasts for agriculture
If you lack access to this journal, contact author: Francisco J. Meza at fmeza@puc.cl

Looking at food safety through YouTube

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:45:00 CDT

A review of 76 videos posted on YouTube during a four-week period of 2007 revealed that the information presented about food safety was only moderately credible. Researchers Emily Rhoades and Jason Ellis suggested that agricultural communicators place attention on two key areas as they consider providing food safety information through new media channels such as video social network Web sites:

Increase evidence of content credibility by using information from third-party informants such as interviewees, or by citing non-biased sources.
Include a dimension of entertainment in videos to develop and maintain viewer interest, as well as perpetuate video popularity and sharing.

Title: Food tube: online coverage of food safety
For full-text access, contact the lead author at rhoades.100@osu.edu

"World's longest running rural radio program breaks new ground."

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:30:00 CDT

That's the title of an article in a recent issue of IFAJ e-News, published by the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists.

"The Country Hour," a long-running rural radio program recognized by the Guinness Book of Records, "is breaking new ground by leveraging the latest technology to stay relevant to its audiences across Australia after more than 60 years. National rural editor Leigh Radford explains how websites, 3G telephone links, geo-tag phones, blogs and podcasts enable a network of 75 specialist rural reporters to share their distinctly Australian stories on the air, on television and on-line with audiences around the world."

Title: Longest running rural radio program
Posted at http://www.ifaj.org > May-June 2008 issue

How Europeans view farmers, farming and agriculture

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:15:00 CDT

We have added to the ACDC collection a summary of findings from a late 2006 survey by the European Commission among 24,732 citizens in the 25 member states, Bulgaria and Romania. It reveals views about topics such as:

Importance of European agriculture and the rural areas
Knowledge, awareness and information about agriculture and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)
Role of farmers in society
Trust in sources of information on farming and EU agricultural policy
Topics on which the public would like more information

Title: Europeans, agriculture and the Common Agricultural Policy
Posted at http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_276_en.pdf

Increasingly, local knowledge is being valued. Then again...

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:00:00 CDT

We recently added to the ACDC collection "An overview of indigenous knowledge (IK) and how it relates to modern science." It came from the Science and Development Network, London, England.

This four-page report described how awareness of the value of indigenous knowledge (especially in sustainable development and poverty alleviation) is "growing at a time when such knowledge is being threatened as never before." Among the important questions involved:

Who owns IK and who may use it?
Who decides how to use IK and for what purpose?
How should its owners be compensated?

These questions about local and traditional knowledge cut across all societies. And they challenge agricultural development as well as other dimensions of development.

Title: An overview of indigenous knowledge
Posted at http://www.scidev.net/en/editorials/opening-minds-to-indigenous-knowledge.html

IFAJ reminder to agricultural journalists

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 08:45:00 CDT

Planners of the 2008 Congress of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) are inviting agricultural journalists all over the world to provide information for a special session. Uschi Raser explains that the session will focus on the topic: "To whom are agricultural journalists responsible?"

Program planners have arranged to carry out an online survey. Results will be presented at the Congress by Joschi Schillhab from the Opinion Research Center, Oekonsult. If you are an agricultural journalist you are invited to take part in the survey. Go to: www.oekonsult.at/ifaj2008

The Congress will take place in Austria and Slovenia during September 10-14. You can learn more about it at www.ifaj2008.com.

Communicator activities approaching

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 08:30:00 CDT

October 2-4, 2008
"Growing beyond the ordinary." Annual conference of the Canadian Farm Writers' Federation (CFWF) to take place in Courtenay, British Columbia.
Information: www.cfwf.ca

October 15-18, 2008
Annual conference of the Association of Food Journalists in Houston, Texas USA.
Information: www.afjonline.com

November 12-14, 2008
"Making waves, lifting tides." Annual conference of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting (NAFB) in Kansas City, Missouri USA.
Information: www.nafb.com

Farm equipment never sounded so good

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 08:15:00 CDT

If you aren't acquainted with the video, " University of Iowa Farm Machine Music," you might want to check it out - even if it is a prank of sorts. A widely circulated e-mail message described it as a collaborative effort between a music conservatory and school of engineering at the University of Iowa. Nearly all of the components came from farm equipment, said the message, and a team invested 13,029 hours in set-up, calibration and tuning before the filming.

Actually, this 3:24 video, "Pipe Dream," is the creation of a company in Texas with no farm equipment involved. According to information on the web site the graphics and music are entirely digitally synthesized. "Virtual instruments are invented by building computer graphics models of objectives that would appear to create the sound of the corresponding music synthesizer track."

View the video at: www.youtube.com > Search on "Amazing Music Machine."
Review a report about the prank at: www.hoax-slayer.com/issue-68.shtml#5

The price of privatized extension services

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:00:00 CDT

Privatization of extension services since the 1990s is having important "privatizing" effects, beyond the question of who pays. Evidence emerged in a conference paper we added recently. Pierre Labarthe and Ismaïl M. Moumouni found some shared North/South themes when they analyzed effects of privatization of extension services in the Netherlands and Benin.

In the Netherlands: (a) Numbers of farmer groups decreased sharply, reducing the sharing of information among farmers. (b) Linkages weakened between extension services and other organizations involved in agricultural knowledge systems and innovation. (c) In many cases, commercial extension companies invested neither time nor money in agronomic experiments to evaluate and improve local techniques and systems.
In Benin: (a) The number of farmers disconnected from the extension service increased considerably. (b) Many farmer contact groups disappeared, weakening connections for sharing information. (c) Increased conflict among farmer organizations "strongly damaged the collective generation, the sharing and circulation of agricultural information and knowledge."

Posted at http://www.aiaee.org/2008/papers.htm > Scroll to this research report.

Surprising results about attitudes toward climate change

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 09:45:00 CDT

The February issue of Risk Analysis included some unexpected results of research among a representative sample of Americans. Among the findings:

Respondents who were better informed about global warming felt less personally responsible for it - and less concerned about it.
Respondents with high confidence in scientists felt less responsible for global warming - and less concerned about it.
Trust in the media was unrelated to the sense of concern and responsibility for global warming.

Title: Personal efficacy, the information environment, and attitudes toward global warming and climate change

IFAJ invites views of agricultural journalists

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 09:30:00 CDT

Planners of the 2008 Congress of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) are asking agricultural journalists all over the world to provide information for a special session. Uschi Raser explains that the session will focus on this topic:

"To whom are agricultural journalists responsible?

The Congress will take place in Austria and Slovenia during September 10-14. You can learn more about it at www.ifaj2008.com.

What journalists in Mali consider most important about their work

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 09:15:00 CDT

We recently added to the ACDC collection a conference paper about a project in which agricultural communications faculty members helped strengthen the professional development of media specialists in the Republic of Mali, West Africa.

Feedback from 16 journalists revealed that they considered these aspects of their jobs most important:

Chance to influence public affairs
Chance to develop a specialty
Amount of "creative freedom" they have in reporting
Chance to help people

These aspects were considered more important than others such as job security, promotion, salary and benefits. The report also identified journalists' views about the importance of various functions of the news media, ethical issues journalists face and the role of free speech in a democracy.

Title: Developing press system
Posted at http://www.aiaee.org/2008/papers.htm

New guidelines to help clear confusion about food terms

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 09:00:00 CDT

"Fresh." "Pure." "Natural." "Handmade." "Quality." "Selected." "Premium." The Food Standards Agency, an independent government department of the United Kingdom, has revised its guidance on the use of these and other marketing terms. Guidelines also involve business names, trademarks, photographs and illustrative representations on labels and in advertisements, leaflets and on web sites.

In addition, you will find (in Part 2, "General best practice advice") four overarching principles for food marketers to consider and apply.

A news release about the revised guidelines is posted at www.food.gov.uk/news/newsarchive/2008/jul/marketing
Details are available at:
www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/markcritguidance.pdf
www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/consultationresponse/mtermsresponses.pdf

Communicator activities approaching

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 08:45:00 CDT

August 24-27, 2008
"World Conference on Agricultural Information and Information Technology" in Tokyo, Japan. Co-coordinated by the International Association of Agricultural Information Specialists (IAALD).
Information: http://iaald.blogspot.com/2007/05/iaald-world-congress-2008.html

October 2-4, 2008
"Growing beyond the ordinary." Annual conference of the Canadian Farm Writers' Federation (CFWF) to take place in Courtenay, British Columbia.
Information: www.cfwf.ca

Describing what those tools really do

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 08:30:00 CDT

We might close by passing along a set of "Tool Descriptions" that John Otte of Farm Progress Companies called to our attention recently. Here are a few samples:

Pliers: Used to round off bolt heads. Sometimes used in the creation of blood blisters.
Table Saw: A large stationary power tool commonly used to launch wood projectiles for testing wall integrity.
Skil Saw: A portable cutting tool used to make studs too short.
Tweezers: A tool for removing wood splinters and wire wheel wires.
Belt Sander: An electric sanding tool commonly used to convert minor touch-up jobs into major refinishing jobs.
Two-Ton Engine Hoist: A tool for testing the maximum tensile strength of everything you forgot to disconnect.

For reasons perhaps obvious we will not be entering this document into the ACDC collection. However, check with us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu if you want to see the full set of descriptions.

New evidence of need for food manufacturers to protect their brands

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 10:00:00 CDT

A report from Food Product Design summarizes survey findings by Deloitte, New York, that food safety fears have escalated of late. Here are signs of need identified through this nationally representative survey during April among U. S. consumers:

57% said they have stopped eating a particular food, temporarily or permanently, as a result of a recent recall.
75% are more concerned about the foods they eat than they were five years ago.
78% are most concerned by beef recalls; 67% by chicken recalls; 53% by fresh fruit and vegetable recalls; and 58% by dairy recalls.
89% would like to see food stores sell more fruits and vegetables that come from local farms.

"Food manufacturers may consider taking a total approach to ensure the safety of their brands, all the way from the farm, to the supply chain, the store shelves, and even the consumer's pantry," observed Deloitte executive Pat Conroy.

Title: Survey illustrates consumer food-safety fears
Posted at www.foodproductdesign.com/hotnews/survey-illustrates-consumer-food-safety-fears.html#

Food - not like cell phones in the minds of consumers

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 09:45:00 CDT

The new European Union member states or transition economies need structured dialogue between science and society, according toa 2008 journal article added to the ACDC collection. Writing in Trends in Food Science and Technology, D. Bánáti emphasized how consumers require much more information, precaution and patience about their daily foodstuffs and health than about new technologies such as cell phones. The article includes guidelines for improving risk communications in European settings and advises helping agricultural ethics "find its proper place in the system of modern ethics."

Title: Fear of food in Europe?
Check with us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu about full-text access.

TV chefs boosting interest in free-range poultry production

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 09:30:00 CDT

A recent article we have added from Scotland on Sunday reports that demand has doubled for birds reared in less intensive conditions. The British Poultry Council (BPC), which represents producers, says a television series by chefs Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall helped spark that demand. Earlier this year the chefs aired a television series "which highlighted appalling conditions in giant broiler chicken production farms in England."

Some of Scotland's leading producers are meeting this demand by turning to more natural, free-range production. "Producers are reacting to that [demand] and that is good news for consumers," said BPC Executive Officer Jeremy Blackburn.

Title: TV chefs spark boom
Posted at http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/

Farm readers (and advertisers) tuning into online video

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 09:15:00 CDT

"Online video a win-win" is the title of a recent article in AgriMarketing magazine. Author Ryan Hunt of Meredith Corporation observed that "broadband video streams are no longer nifty extras or at work time-wasters. Video is quickly becoming a useful, valuable standard of Web content."

According to the article, a recent survey found that 95% of Agriculture Online's user panel members have watched an online video. And thousands of visits have been posted since November when Agriculture Online introduced AGOL-TV, which houses every video that has been featured. The article reports that advertisers as well as farmers are connecting with this new venue.

Title: Online video a win-win
Posted at http://www.agrimarketingdigital.com/?iid=7453&startpage=32&crd=229,4136,2036,329,00FF00zz

Signs of trouble in use of the Farmer Field School approach

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 09:00:00 CDT

Mark Schut and Stephen Sherwood of the Wageningen University and Research Centre, Netherlands, found erosion of the Farmer Field School concept in three Ecuador case studies. The FFS approach to providing information for farmers is known for being farmer-centered, problem-based and oriented to self-discovery.

"Despite much enthusiasm over early results, eight years later we observed that professionals and their institutions apply the FFS approach in diverse and contradictory ways," the authors reported in a recent journal article. Findings revealed a shift to more conventional, technology-centered designs.

Title: FFSs in translation: scaling up in name, but not in meaning
Posted at www.leisa.info > Search > Title

Communicator activities approaching

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 08:45:00 CDT

July 26-30, 2008
"10th anniversary Ag Media Summit." Joint meeting of American Agricultural Editors' Association (AAEA), Livestock Publications Council (LPC), ABM Agri-Council, Agricultural Communicators of Tomorrow (ACT) and Ag Relations Council (ARC).
Information: www.agmediasummit.com

October 2-4, 2008
"Growing beyond the ordinary." Annual conference of the Canadian Farm Writers' Federation (CFWF) to take place in Courtenay, British Columbia.
Information: www.cfwf.ca

Budding novelists with rural interests show their stuff

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 08:30:00 CDT

It's time again to recognize exceptional rural writing talent identified in the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. In constant search of such talent, we monitor this international literary parody contest that challenges entrants to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels. Here are a couple honored examples from the 2007 contest. It is sponsored by the Department of English and Comparative Literature at San Jose State University:

Winning entry - Western Literature (from Glenn Lawrie, Chungnam, South Korea)

"The easy and comforting roll of the saddle was second nature to Luke, and as he gazed off into the distant setting sun, he wondered whether he had enough change for one more ride at the supermarket before he had to return home."

Runner-up - Children's Literature (Julie Jensen, Lodi, California)

"Mary had a little lamb; its fleece was Polartec 200 (thanks to gene splicing, a diet of force-fed petrochemical supplements, and regular dips in an advanced surface fusion polymer), which had the fortunate side effect of rendering it inedible, unlike that other Mary's organic lamb which misbehaved at school and wound up in a lovely Moroccan stew with dried apricots and couscous."

You can see other inspiring 2007 entries at http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2007.htm.

Six new agricultural communications research reports

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:00:00 CDT

Here are reports presented early this month at a session of the Research Special Interest Group of the Association for Communication Excellence (ACE) in Traverse City, Michigan:

Eric A. Abbott and Lulu Rodriguez, "Genetically modified crops in developing countries: a meta-analysis of mass media coverage, public knowledge and attitudes." Abstract. Contact: eabbott@iastate.edu
Katie Chodil and Courtney Meyers, "Conversations with gatekeepers: an exploratory study of agricultural publication editors' decisions to publish risk coverage." Abstract. Contact: kchodil@ufl.edu
Katie Chodil, Courtney Meyers, Tracy Irani and Lauri Baker, "Branding the land-grant university: agricultural producers' and community leaders' awareness of the tripartite mission." Abstract. Contact: kchodil@ufl.edu
Kelsey Hall and Emily Rhoades, "Student publications' place in agricultural communication curriculum." Abstract. Contact: hall.700@osu.edu
Erica Goss Irlbeck, Cindy Akers and Mindy Brashears, "A content analysis of food safety measures on television's Food Network." Abstract. Contact: erica.irlbeck@ttu.edu
Emily Rhoades and Jason Ellis, "Food Tube: online coverage of food safety." Abstract. Contact: rhoades.100@osu.edu

Please check with the authors if you would like to review full reports.

Getting basic: land, water, assets - and education

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:45:00 CDT

World Development Report 2008 cites these four as key instruments in using agriculture for development. "Education is often the most valuable asset for rural people to pursue opportunities in the new agriculture," according to the report. "Yet education levels in rural areas tend to be dismally low worldwide."

In this report, "education" was interpreted broadly. It included nonformal training and information services to provide technical and business skills useful in the new agriculture - and the rural nonfarm economy.

Posted at: http://go.worldbank.org/ZJIAOSUFU0

Not much interaction on the Web about genetically modified food

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:30:00 CDT

If that statement sounds impossible you may find interest in research reported in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. Using as many as 107 search engines over two stages, researchers Paul Wouters and Diana Gerbec uncovered relatively little interaction.

"The overwhelming majority of results we obtained were postings of information about GM food. Most of these were clippings and articles from traditional media. Even within the domain of discussion and news groups, most hits were less dialogical than they seemed. It is striking how often discussion groups and e-mail forums are used for the distribution of printed articles about GM food. The mountain of information about GM food that we uncovered gave birth to a very small mound of mediated interaction."

Title: Interactive internet?
Posted at http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol8/issue4/wouters.html

A call for more consumer research about meat information systems

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:15:00 CDT

An article we have added to the ACDC collection reports findings of a survey among meat purchasers in Scotland. Results revealed that consumer views on meat production varied widely, and that consumers had concerns about food safety, animal welfare and meat purchasing. Beyond that, consumers showed limited knowledge about the underpinning standards and systems of meat safety (such as food registration, labeling and information available). Authors recommended "much wider research" among consumers about their understanding of, interest in, and trust in these dimensions of their food supply.

Title: Consumer perceptions of meat production

When bottom-up development becomes top-down

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:00:00 CDT

You probably are familiar with the Farmer Field School (FFS) approach in agricultural and rural development. Introduced in the late 1990s, has become increasingly popular, internationally, as producer centered, locally led, problem based and oriented to self-discovery.

However, an article we added recently to the ACDC collection raises a bright caution flag. Marc Schut and Stephen Sherwood cited three case examples in Ecuador of ways in which the FFS approach became eroded. "Supporting farmers to local innovations became technology transfer again, and the farmer-led, demand-driven character was replaced by externally-driven development."

Title: FFSs in translation
Posted at: www.leisa.info > Magazine > 23(4)

How agricultural communications began: a helpful reminder

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 08:45:00 CDT

Thanks to Bob Kern, emeritus faculty member of Iowa State University, for this report. He says a recent note in ACDC News about long-ago agricultural communications stirred something in his memory.

"Many of us in agricultural communication tend to assume the field didn't really get started until our medium came on the scene. For me, that's leaflets, journals, newspapers, etc. But people were sharing technical information long before then, I surmise.

When I was reading for my second language requirement as a Ph.D. candidate at University of Wisconsin (1958), I practiced on a volume of memoir of Napoleon III, the leader credited with razing and rebuilding what thrills us now as the center of Paris. In addition to recounting all the bridges he stimulated, he reported some items tracing to his forebear, Napoleon I. One note especially took my eye--and I still remember it. He recalled that Napoleon I had advised farmers of the day to seek the best methods for culture and husbandry by sending a son to work for six months or more with the best farmer in the area.

That was well before, in the third quarter of the Twentieth Century, Isaac Asimov led off an article with the sentence (probably re-phrased): We will be in the Information Age when we realize that we can move information without moving people."

Communicator activities approaching

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 08:30:00 CDT

July 14, 2008
"Meeting information and knowledge needs of farmers in Africa through e-Agriculture." Seminar of the African Chapter of the International Association of Agricultural Information Specialists (IAALD) in Lusaka, Zambia.
Information: www.scecsal.org/iaald_at_scecsal2008.pdf

Voices from the Dust Bowl

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 08:15:00 CDT

"These people were dying to sing about their plight," said Charles Todd in describing his recording experiences in California migrant worker camps during 1940-41. Through a Farm Security Administration program, he and Robert Sonkin recorded songs of rural families who had been forced westward by economic depression and prolonged drought in the Dust Bowl of the Midwest. According to Todd, the camps were full of singers and guitar, banjo and mouth harp players.

You can listen to songs from these camps and review other materials about the plight of those migrant farm workers by visiting the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress at: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/afctshtml/tsme.html.This site, "The migrant experience," includes live links to an assortment of recorded songs.

Meet a rural broadcasting "bloke on a bike."

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 10:00:00 CDT

You can track the travels of an Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) rural reporter who has been broadcasting across Australia from a motorcycle. During the early months of this year, Drew Radford of ABC "Country Hour" has been traveling nationwide "on a quest to find the innovative and the interesting, the clever and the just plain strange in rural Australia."

He is broadcasting using 3G telephone network technology mounted on a motorcycle. He also is testing a geo-tag 3G phone, which has a 5 mega-pixel camera. The system permits him to upload geo-tagged photos onto the web from wherever he is. You can hear interviews, see photos and watch videos.

Title: Say g'day to a bloke on a bike
Posted at http://www.abc.net.au/rural/content/2007/s2156047.htm

Strong support for country of origin labeling (COOL)

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 09:45:00 CDT

We recently added to the ACDC collection a report of survey research about this subject among a sample of residents in New Jersey. About 84 percent of respondents said they would like markets to provide information about country of origin of fresh produce. The Rutgers researchers found that those who were married, self-employed, had higher incomes or possessed more education were more likely to support COOL.

Title: Country of origin labeling of fresh produce
Posted at http://dafre.rutgers.edu/documents/ramu/countryoriginjun_2006.pdf

Is fast-food promotion a significant cause of obesity?

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 09:30:00 CDT

That's a good question, according to results of a diary survey among a sample of Canadian households. Researchers Timothy Richards and Luis Padilla used econometric analysis to examine data that involved more than 5,600 restaurant visits and 262 individual foods chosen over a five-year sample period. They focused on price-promotion strategies and not mass advertising.

Findings suggested that "the principal effect [of price promotion] is to cause fast food consumers to purchase more often, or buy more on each visit. While this is likely viewed as a welcome outcome by marketing managers in the food industry, from a public policy perspective it provides support for those who argue in favor of regulating the marketing of fast food to groups at risk of obesity."

Title: Promotion and fast food demand: where's the beef?

100th anniversary prompts many orange smiles

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 09:15:00 CDT

The "Sunkist Smile" has been generating a lot of camera activity throughout the U. S. You can see some of the results on the web site of Sunkist Growers, a cooperative owned by more than 6,000 citrus producers in California and Arizona. Be prepared to see smiles from babies, puppies, Charlie Chaplin, Mickey Mouse, Superman and a host of others.

"Slice and Click" is the theme of this anniversary contest that began during February and ended in mid-May. Contestants submitted photos of themselves online with Sunkist Smiles (orange wedges in their mouths) and 25- to 40-word captions about why or how they enjoy Sunkist citrus.

The Cooperative Communicators Association newsletter, CCA News, explains: "Some of those images will travel worldwide in promotional materials. And later this year, the Sunkist Smile will be featured on the huge display screen in New York's Times Square."

Visit the "Sunkist Smile" at www.sunkist.com/smiles/

Caught in the middle: extensionists/advisers and agri-environmental policy.

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 09:00:00 CDT

Pressures for standardized, tightly-focused delivery of programs implementing the European Union agri-environmental policy (AEP) may be limiting extension efforts, according to research in England and Finland. Such pressures may also be "failing to bring about the long term shift in thinking and action that will be necessary if farmers are to learn about, and implement, environmental management in any more thoroughgoing sense."

Those insights come from research findings reported in Sociologia Ruralis. Interviews with extensionists and advisers in those countries revealed two themes:

In Finland, some advisers' desire to cultivate the trust of farmers led them to communicate a vision of AEP as foremost an income support measure and only incidentally environmental in scope and purpose.
In England, particularly, bureaucratic desire to program efficiently through "arms length" management by advisers limited their exercise of professional judgment.

Researchers suggested giving extensionists/advisers a much wider exercise of autonomous professional judgment to achieve outcomes that are tailored to specific settings and sensitive to the preferences and knowledge of farmers.

Title: Interpreting and reinterpreting agri-environmental policy

"Communicating science in the evolving world of social media"

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 08:45:00 CDT

"Communicating science in the evolving world of social media" is the title of a recent article in Food Insight newsletter from the International Food Information Council. Blogs, vlogs, RSS feeds, wikis, podcasts and other user-generated content provided through Web 2.0 offer "tremendous opportunity for those willing to step out of their 'first generation' comfort zones."

This article describes new efforts of the Council to communicate science using social media. It also offers guidelines for operating successfully in this dynamic landscape.

Posted at http://ific.org/foodinsight/2008/jf/socialmediafi108.cfm

Communicator activities approaching

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 08:30:00 CDT

June 19-21, 2008
"Break from the gate in 2008." Seminar of American Horse Publications in Saratoga Springs, New York.
Information: www.americanhorsepubs.org/programs/seminars

June 21-24, 2008
"Hook, line and sinker: restock your communications tackle box." Annual Institute of the Cooperative Communicators Association (CCA) in Portland, Maine.
Information: www.communicators.coop

June 23-27, 2008
"Bridges to the future." Tenth conference of the Public Communication of Science and Technology (PCST) Network and the Swedish Research Council to be held in Sweden and Denmark.
Information: www.vr.se/pcst

"Stand by your ham"

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 08:15:00 CDT

"Stand by your ham" is the title of a lively YouTube video intended to alert consumers to economic problems in the UK pig industry. Yes, it plays on the popular song, "Stand by your man." A group of pig producers recorded it recently in a London studio. You can view this "new media" effort in rural-urban communications by going to YouTube www.youtube.com, then conducting a site search on the title.

Record-breaking campaign celebrates food that Britain produces

Tue, 13 May 2008 10:00:00 CDT

A news report we have added to the ACDC collection describes results of the national British Food Fortnight campaign that took place September 22-October 7, 2007. The report gives details about this sixth annual "Buy British" campaign that reached and involved an unprecedented audience.

Thousands of food festivals, promotions, exhibits and other events took place.
Media coverage included BBC News, Radio 2, ITV, QVC, every national newspaper and publications covering "an enormous breadth of interest groups."
The "Buy British" message was seen or heard more than 300 million times.
The BFF website received 5.8 million hits and was visited by 340,000 people.
A volunteer network of 9,000 chefs helped schools teach children how to cook.
Hundreds of schools organized visits to farms and toured local butchers and greengrocers.
Food service organizations put British food on thousands of menus in pubs, restaurants and hospitals.

Title: British Food Fortnight
Related article posted at: www.britishfoodfortnight.co.uk/media-area/press-statements/biggest-ever-national celebration-of-british-food

Facing the risky side of rural journalism

Tue, 13 May 2008 09:45:00 CDT

The International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) recently reported how some journalists covering rural affairs were swept up in danger and conflict during 2007. This report was based on research we provided through the IFAJ/ACDC partnership for professional development.

You can monitor the experiences of 12 journalists who were killed, arrested, assaulted or otherwise harassed in their efforts to cover rural affairs in nine countries.

Title: Rural coverage risky (again) in 2007
Posted at: http://www.ifaj.org/news/Web%20feature_Journalistdeaths.pdf

"I believe the song is pretty much the same."

Tue, 13 May 2008 09:30:00 CDT

In the previous issue of ACDC News we noted a question on the minds of some retired U. S. communicators. They had been invited to consider speaking at a conference of the Association for Communication Excellence in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Life and Human Sciences (ACE) during June. "Have technologies and processes changed so greatly that insights of earlier years now hold little value?" they wondered. Here are two reactions:

"I think that while technology changes, the heart of communicating to the various audiences we reach does not." (Joanne Littlefield)
"As a bystander from the many years of participating in and watching Agricultural Communication content and methods, I believe the song is pretty much the same. The technology used to communicate the messages isn't the message. The content may be organized somewhat differently, but the sources and users are still much the same." (Bill Tedrick)

Your thoughts also are welcomed. Send them to us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu. (Note: a panel of ACE retirees is scheduled to speak during June at the ACE conference.)

Passing of a pioneer

Tue, 13 May 2008 09:15:00 CDT

We join others in recognizing the life and contributions of William B. Ward who died April 27 at the age of 90. During 26 years as head of what is now the Department of Communication at Cornell University, he provided national and international leadership in education, scholarship and program development in journalism and communication related to agriculture. The unit he led became one of the largest and most emulated of its kind. His book, Reporting Agriculture, was among the early and influential references for professional education in this field. International experience during his career included service in the Philippines, Argentina, India, Nigeria, Syria, Indonesia, Guatemala and Honduras.

You can learn more about his career at: www.legacy.com/theithacajournal/obituaries.asp?Page=Lifestory&PersonId=108658677

"Acclaimed photo was faked."

Tue, 13 May 2008 09:00:00 CDT

That headline from the European Journalism Centre alerted readers to this cautionary tale about ethics in digital natural resource photography:

"An award-winning photograph of a herd of endangered Tibetan antelopes apparently undisturbed by a passing train on the controversial Qinghai-Tibet railway has been exposed as a fake. The image was widely hailed in China as a symbol of harmonious co-existence between man and nature and strong testimony against any adverse effect of the new railway on the animals."

Title: Acclaimed photo was faked
You can view the report and photo at: http://www.ejc.net/media_news/acclaimed_photo_was_faked

When food consumers fear agro-terrorism

Tue, 13 May 2008 08:45:00 CDT

Growing consumer interest in local rather than imported foods is often related to concerns about agro-terrorism, according to research by a team of Rutgers University economists. Their findings revealed that one-third of the consumers they surveyed said the threat of agroterrorism had caused them to think locally when it comes to their produce purchases. Findings also suggested some specific attributes common among consumers who show such a preference.

Posted at: http://dafre.rutgers.edu/documents/ramu/agroterrorism.pdf

Communicator activities approaching

Tue, 13 May 2008 08:30:00 CDT

June 10-13, 2008
"Talk to the hand." ACE '08 conference of the Association for Communication Excellence in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Life and Human Sciences, in Traverse City, Michigan.
Information: www.ace08.com

June 19-21, 2008
"Break from the gate in 2008." Seminar of American Horse Publications in Saratoga Springs, New York.
Information: www.americanhorsepubs.org/programs/seminars

Insights from the lexophiles (lovers of words)

Tue, 13 May 2008 08:15:00 CDT

We close this issue of ACDC News with some eye-opening insights that involve food, agriculture and communications. The contributor of them may wish to remain anonymous. With our apologies:

Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.
He had a photographic memory which was never developed.
A boiled egg is hard to beat.
A chicken crossing the road - poultry in motion

Can you add to this sad collection? Send them to us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu.

Could cloning generate something like the biotech "frankenfood" saga?

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:00:00 CDT

An article in The Economist addressed that question soon after an endorsement by the U. S. Food and Drug Administration early this year. The endorsement declared food derived from the offspring of cloned cows, pigs and goats to be safe for human consumption.

This article identified three reasons to think that food from clones need not spark the same kind and level of concern among consumers as had the arrival of biotechnology in agriculture more than a decade ago.

Title: Son of Frankenfood?
Posted at: www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10534084

On the birth of Frankenfoods and the power of metaphors

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 09:45:00 CDT

We recently added to the ACDC collection an article in PR Reporter that describes the origin of the word, Frankenfoods. Author Jay Byrne of v-Fluence Interactive Public Relations also explored food-related wording used in verbal battlefields related to biotechnology and organic methods of producing food.

"Language counts," he concluded.

Title: Attack of the killer labels
Posted at: www.v-fluence.com/home/resources/articles/attack-of-the-killer-labels.html

European citizens express their views about animal welfare

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 09:30:00 CDT

"Attitudes of EU citizens towards animal welfare" is the title of a March 2007 report of research by the European Commission. According to the conclusions:

There is a considerable interest in animal welfare standards. On average, citizens rated the importance of the welfare of farmed animals at almost 8 on a maximum scale of 10.
Most expressed some willingness to change their usual place of shopping in order to purchase products more friendly to animal welfare.
They expressed need for improved information about welfare conditions that lie behind the products seen on shelves. Labeling was identified as particularly important.
Most said they believe that animal welfare standards in individual EU countries have improved over the last decade.
Citizens consider farmers to be best-placed to ensure these welfare improvements.
Television is the source by which citizens said they would most like to receive more information about this subject.

Title: Attitudes of EU citizens towards animal welfare
See the report at: http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_270_en.pdf

Communicators offer winning tips for judging dairy cattle

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 09:15:00 CDT

Thanks to staff members at AgriMarketing magazine for alerting us to sure-fire tips for winning the annual Hoard's Dairyman cow judging contest. These techniques came from the creative staff of Charleston/Orwig, a marketing communications firm headquartered in Wisconsin dairyland.

You can see this video at: http://blog.fieldassignment.com
Go to Archives > March 2008 > Scroll to "Making the grade."

"It may be time to drop the term 'precision agriculture'."

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 09:00:00 CDT

Prairie Farmer columnist Willie Vogt offered that thought in a recent issue. He cited a specialist in emerging technologies who suggested that all agriculture is precision agriculture. The specialist was referring to the increased use of technologies for autosteering, grid soil sampling and use of management zones for managing crop fertility.

Title: Rethinking the role of precision
Contact us by return e-note if you would like to see this column.

Nine new agricultural communications research papers

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 08:45:00 CDT

Here are nine papers presented in the agricultural communications section of the Southern Association of Agricultural Scientists. This meeting took place during February in Dallas, Texas.

"Usability evaluation of an online media resource guide" by Cindy Akers, David Doerfert, Todd Chambers, Kim Cooper and Chad Davis
"Research themes, authors and methodologies in the Journal of Applied Communications: a ten-year look" by Leslie D. Edgar, Tracy Rutherford and Gary Briers
"A curriculum for university agricultural communication programs: a synthesis of research" by Tammy M. Ettredge, and Kimberly A. Bellah
"UF's [University of Florida's] scientific thinking and educational partnership: an approach for genetics outreach" by Lisa Hightower, Ricky Telg, Courtney Meyers, Tracy Irani and Maria Gallo
"A national evaluation of the beef cattle industry's use of communication channels to obtain information regarding food safety" by Moriah Jennings, Todd Brashears, Scott Burris, Cindy Akers and Mindy Brashears
"Feeding the debate: a framing analysis of the news media coverage of organic food" by Courtney Meyers and Katie Chodil
"Examining JAC: an analysis of the scholarly progression of the Journal of Applied Communications" by Traci Naile, Tanner Robertson and Dwayne Cartmell
"Louisiana consumer perceptions of environmental practices in farming" by Robert J. Soileau and Joe W. Kotrlik
"Usability evaluation of the Cotton Economics Research Institution web site" by Samantha D. Yates, Cindy Akers and Erica Irlbeck

You can review these papers at: http://agnews.tamu.edu/saas/saasproceedings.html

Communicator activities approaching

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 08:30:00 CDT

June 19-21, 2008
"Break from the gate in 2008." Seminar of American Horse Publications in Saratoga Springs, New York.
Information: www.americanhorsepubs.org/programs/seminars

Instant messaging in agriculture

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 08:15:00 CDT

Writing in Southwest Farm Press, Ron Smith observed that a system of abbreviated messages might help farmers as they communicate by instant messaging. Kids do it, he said (e.g., ur for you are). Why shouldn't busy farmers have a specific language to handle the technical aspects of daily life and work?Here are some of the examples he offered:

Lgf - let's go fishing
Lgfn - let's go fishing now
Cro - cows are out
Tnd - truck in ditch
Gtnrn - getting any rain?

Title: Abbreviations might help ag

Creating internet field days.

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 10:00:00 CDT

A farmer-driven agricultural organization in Victoria, Australia, is using the internet to keep farm business members posted on progress in crop trials throughout a growing season. An article we added recently explains how the Birchip Cropping Group (BCG) uses "Virtual Agronomy" as a supplement to field days, technical fax bulletins, newsletters and a manual of trial results.

For example, during a recent crop season farmers could monitor progress in a variety trial of canola, monola and crambe. They received written information, along with photographs, video footage and/or audio recordings. So at various stages they could see what crambe looks like, view images of canola and crambe at flowering stages, and observe how crambe produced only one seed per pod.

Title: Internet field days: helping farmers to make better decisions
Visit the BCG web site at www.bcg.org.au

A 20-year review - U. S. news media coverage of biotechnology.

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 09:45:00 CDT

We are pleased to add to the ACDC collection a speech on this subject by Jim Webster, president of Webster Communications, Washington, D.C. He spoke on January 16 at a Farm Foundation conference that focused on the second decade of crop biotechnology.

In his experience, the mainstream U. S. news media have done a reasonably fair job of covering the progress of crop biotechnology. He described several factors that have led him to that conclusion. In addition, he identified topics to which he believes media have not given adequate attention. Among them:

The question of "whether we have the regulatory scheme right."
Long-term effect on the wheat industry of the "collective split decision" to resist biotech wheat.
Environmental and safety impacts of plant biotechnology.

Title: Crop biotechnology going forward: a news media perspective
Click here for a transcript of the speech.

Does the song remain the same across the years?

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 09:30:00 CDT

That question came to the minds of some retired U. S. communicators when they were invited to consider speaking at a conference of ACE (Association for Communication Excellence in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Life and Human Sciences). They wondered:

How valuable today is the wisdom they gained through their experience?
"From 16 mm film through Beta and 3/4 tape to the digital age," have technologies and processes changed so greatly that insights of earlier years now hold little value?
Or is there a core of enduring professional insight and wisdom that communicators can share? As one communicator put it, "Does the song remain the same?"

Please pass along your thoughts. Send them to us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu

Forty-plus years of change in agricultural communications.

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 09:15:00 CDT

We appreciate receiving a radio interview aired during January on the "Georgetown University Forum" in Washington, D.C. It featured more than 40 years of transition in agricultural communications in the U.S. through the career experiences of Larry Quinn, Assistant Director, Office of Communications, U.S. Department of Agriculture.

He described some of the information technologies he has seen and used, beginning with rural telephone service to their Oklahoma farm home during the 1940s. Looking back, he noted, those "party lines" provided his first experience with teleconferencing. His career took him into rural programming via radio, television, motion pictures, satellite live television, video webcasting and beyond. Communications doesn't stay still very long, he observed, and he identified several trends and future directions. Check with us if you are interested in this half-hour interview, which is archived in CD format.

Title: Communications in transition

"How thorough is communication in your projects?"

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 09:00:00 CDT

Geoff Thompson asked that question of agricultural development associates in a recent article we added to the ACDC collection. He is with the Centre for Alleviation of Poverty through Secondary Crops Development in Asia and Pacific (CAPSA), a United Nations subsidiary. His article addressed the vital role of effective communications in the success of agricultural and rural development programs.

Title: Key issues in research communication
Posted at: www.uncapsa.org/flash_detail.asp?VJournalKey=%20%20%20%20%20590

"Not very thorough" seems to be the disappointing international answer

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 08:45:00 CDT

"Not very thorough" seems to be the disappointing international answer to his question. A background paper for the World Congress on Communication for Development (October 2006) put it this way:

"Despite increasing recognition of the central role that communication plays in promoting agricultural and rural development … national and local rural development plans hardly include communication components and there are limited examples of communication for development services to improve living standards in rural areas."

This may sound sadly familiar if you are a veteran of communicating about - and within -agricultural and rural development programs of any kind. Thousands of documents within the ACDC collection testify to this challenge. Please let us know (docctr@library.uiuc.edu) if you would like to see examples - or can provide examples.

Title: World congress on communication for development
Posted at: www.fao.org/sd/dim_kn1/docs/kn1_060602d1_en.pdf > page 8

Dirty laundry is helping promote cotton.

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 08:30:00 CDT

The cotton industry is using a mobile marketing event - "Cotton's Dirty Laundry Tour" - to attract a new generation of young consumers to cotton. An article in Southeast Farm Press called attention to the purpose and approach of this "experiential marketing" effort. Last year Cotton Incorporated visited 11 college campuses to involve students in interactive educational games and activities. Among them: cotton origami, denim fit guide, color sort game, cotton fabric trends and a denim drive.

Title: "Dirty Laundry" college tour aims at creating cotton loyalty
Further information about the activity is posted at: www.accesscotton.com

Communicator activities approaching

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 08:15:00 CDT

April 27-May 1, 2008
"In the pines." Annual National Extension Technology Conference (NETC) at the Raleigh-Durham/Research Triangle Embassy Suites in Cary, North Carolina.
Information: http://netc08.ces.ncsu.edu

June 19-21, 2008
"Break from the gate in 2008." Seminar of American Horse Publications in Saratoga Springs, New York.
Information: www.americanhorsepubs.org/programs/seminars

June 21-24, 2008
"Hook, line and sinker: restock your communications tacklebox." Institute of the Cooperative Communicators Association (CCA) in Portland, Maine.
Information: www.communicators.coop

We close with a theological question of the day.

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 08:00:00 CDT

It came to light in this recent headline in a farm periodical:

"Horses' prayers answered by Kentucky rescue farm"

The article described activities of a charitable organization that takes in unwanted or neglected horses, nurses them back to health and finds new homes for them. At a deeper level, does the headline invite thought about a matter that may hold special interest for agricultural communicators - the communications patterns and prayer life of horses?

New series about boosting rural readership.

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 10:00:00 CDT

During recent months the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists web site has featured a series of articles about ways to attract rural readers. Uniquely, this series has roots in a set of guidelines described a half-century ago by Donald R. Murphy in a book, What farmers read and like. It summarized findings from more than 20 years of readership surveys and experiments (1938-1961) among farm men and women in two Midwest states.

Our ACDC staff, in producing this series through partnership with IFAJ, invited IFAJ members to review some of those guidelines and evaluate how well they apply today. Click on these live links to review the reactions and advice online:

"Are guidelines timeless for attracting farm readers?"

"How to create front covers that attract rural readers"

"How to choose subjects and headlines that pull in readers"

"Using color today to boost your rural readership"

"How to use photographs to boost your rural readership"

We extend special thanks to the professionals who contributed to this series and invite any reactions and suggestions you may have.

Traffic light labeling of foods

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:45:00 CDT

If you are not acquainted with this labeling system in the United Kingdom you may be interested in a report we added recently from the Food Standards Agency. According to the report, a growing number of UK supermarkets and food manufacturers are using traffic light colors on the labels of some products to help consumers make healthful choices. How does it work? Each label contains four panels that show at a glance if the food has high, medium or low amounts of fat, saturated fat, sugars and salt.

A red panel in the label means the food is high in one of those nutrients we should be trying to cut down on: fat, saturated fat, sugars or salt.
An amber panel means the item is "an OK choice most of the time, but you might want to go for green for that nutrient some of the time."
A green panel means that food item is low in fat, saturated fat, sugar or salt.

The more green lights, the healthier the choice. You can see sample labels in the article.

Title: Traffic light labeling
Posted at http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/foodlabels/trafficlights

Why the internet is no substitute for a library.

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:30:00 CDT

Our experience in developing the ACDC collection during the past 25 years has taken us face-to-face with this topic. Internet research helps us find amazing information. Yet from experience we have discovered some limits of it - and some strengths of library collections and services. So it was a pleasure recently to read a 2007 book by Mark Y. Herring, Fool's gold: why the internet is no substitute for a library. Herring's analysis led him to suggest:

"We should be adapting the web as a tool of the library rather than changing the library to fit the web."

What a day!

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:15:00 CDT

Staff members of Farm Journal magazine are helping readers share photos of some of their frustrating experiences and activities. For example, a photo in the February issue featured a tractor that had slid into a pond.

"If you've had one of those days…we'd love to share it with our readers," the staff members explained. They invited prints, slides or high-resolution digital images.

You can see an example at: www.agweb.com > Search > "what a day" tailgate

Communication - at the heart of change.

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:00:00 CDT

Open, participatory information and communication processes lie at the heart of sustainable human and social development. That message came through strongly in a 2007 report commissioned by the Department for International Development, United Kingdom Government. The report emphasized how media and effective communication processes are often poorly understood, downplayed, used in fragmented ways and feared by those in power. However, they are:

The lifeblood of healthy political processes
At the heart of good governance
Fundamental to a vibrant civil society
A key to efficient, equitable economics

"Helping billions of people currently living in a state of absolute poverty to improve their lives is the greatest challenge facing the world over the next 20 years," the report concluded. It suggested ways in which to strengthen communications in that effort.

Thanks to Geoff Thompson in Indonesia for alerting us to this report. Effective work of agricultural journalists and communicators will be vital to success in the challenges it identifies.

Title: At the heart of change
Posted at: www.panos.org.uk/pdf/reports/heart_of_change_web.pdf

Communicator activities approaching

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 08:45:00 CDT

April 10, 2008
"The nuts and bolts of ag communication." Midwest Regional Design and Writing Workshop hosted by the Livestock Publications Council (LPC) and American Agricultural Editors' Association (AAEA) in Johnston, Iowa USA.
Information: Diane Johnson at dianej@flash.net or Den Gardner at ageditors@aol.com

April 13-15, 2008
"Media relations made easy in HOTLANTA." Workshop of the Association for Communication Excellence in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Life and Human Sciences (ACE) in Atlanta, Georgia USA.
Information: http://hosting.caes.uga.edu/MRME

April 16-18, 2008
"Leading the charge." 2008 Agri-Marketing Conference of the National Agri-Marketing Association (NAMA) in Kansas City, Missouri USA.
Information: www.nama.org

April 27-May 1, 2008
"In the pines." Annual National Extension Technology Conference (NETC) at the Raleigh-Durham/Research Triangle Embassy Suites in Cary, North Carolina, USA.
Information: http://netc08.ces.ncsu.edu

June 19-21, 2008
"Break from the gate in 2008." Seminar of American Horse Publications in Saratoga Springs, New York.
Information: www.americanhorsepubs.org/programs/seminars

June 21-24, 2008
"Hook, line and sinker: restock your communications tacklebox." Institute of the Cooperative Communicators Association (CCA) in Portland, Maine.
Information: www.communicators.coop

How to stir the creative juices.

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 08:30:00 CDT

We close this issue of ACDC News with a comment by Grant Wood, as reported in a recent issue of the Stockyards Collector. He created the classic "American Gothic" painting and many others that revealed Midwest folklore and life in the countryside during the early to mid 1900s.

"All the really good ideas I ever had came to me while I was milking a cow."

Would you like to see a few examples of Grant Wood creations? Check these sites:
http://cgfa.sunsite.dk/w/p-wood2.htm
www.crma.org/collection/wood/wood.htm

Using the language of war in covering agriculture.

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 10:00:00 CDT

We recently added to the ACDC collection an article in Science Communication that included a case example of agricultural war language. It involved an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in the United Kingdom. Researchers found that a search of the Lexis-Nexis database using the keyword "war," for example, identified 159 articles in national UK newspapers from March 20-30, 2001. Here are other militaristic metaphors they found in media and other reporting: Battle. Fight. Strikes. Killer. Marching. Enemy. Invasion. Foreign invader. Fortress mentality. Attack. Siege.

In this framing, authors noted, the handling of FMD was conceptualized as a war against an invisible and foreign enemy, the virus. Veterinarians and farmers became soldiers. The animals were recast as enemies alongside the virus. Basically, authors found the language of war used consciously for definite political and ideological purposes. "…it acted to mobilize, justify solutions, and exculpate government from responsibility and gave focus and mode of operation. This is the classic war metaphor framing."

Title: Metaphors and biorisks

Let's banish "organic."

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:45:00 CDT

Businesses as organic. T-shirts as organic. Shampoo as organic. Computer software as organic. So maybe it is not surprising to see "organic" on the Lake Superior State University 2008 List of Banished Words. You may recall that wordsmiths at this Michigan university annually invite nominations of words to be "banished from the Queen's English for misuse, overuse and general uselessness."

You can see the complete 2008 list - and add your own comments - at: www.lssu.edu/banished/current.php

Getting a view of the core periodical literature in agricultural communications.

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:30:00 CDT

The Journal of Agricultural and Food Information recently published an analysis of core periodical literature in the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center here at the University of Illinois. Researcher Joe Zumalt identified more than 16,000 articles from scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers and, now, their electronic equivalents. Among his findings:

Periodical literature makes up 55 percent of the ACDC collection.
These articles, published between the 1850s and 2006, featured agriculture-related communicating in countries around the world. "The findings suggest that what began as a United States-based resource is becoming international in substantial ways."
Between 1981 (when collecting began) and 2006, the total number of different periodicals represented in the collection grew more than five-fold, from 326 to 1,766.
Periodical literature of this field shows a continuing lack of centrality. In 2006, articles in the top 10 periodicals comprised only 37 percent of the total.
Findings reveal the "need to search across an extremely wide range of disciplines for the periodical literature of agricultural communications and provide helpful directions and guidelines for doing so."

"The results of this study underscore the importance and value of the ACDC effort to identify and make available the widely scattered literature of agricultural communications," he observed.

Posted at http://www.ideals.uiuc.edu/handle/2142/3495

Who would expect to find agricultural communications literature there?

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:15:00 CDT

From time to time we can't help sharing with you our adventure in collecting information about the communications aspects of agriculture. Here are some unexpected journals to which our detective work has taken us during recent weeks:

Environmental Modeling and Software
Food and Chemical Toxicology
Ecological Economics
Social Work in Education
Annals of the Association of American Geographers
Social Science Computer Review
Journal of Sustainable Forestry
Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health
Ecos
Health, Risk and Society

Local knowledge should be incorporated into formal studies of soils

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:00:00 CDT

Local knowledge should be incorporated into formal studies of soils, argued A.G.C. Alves in an Interciencia article we added recently to the ACDC collection. The author described how "many peasant and indigenous societies have created their own soil use strategies, having little or no contact with official research and rural communication agencies. Management techniques used by these societies are mainly based on local knowledge systems." They encompass non-agricultural uses of soils (e.g., pottery making) as well as agricultural uses.

Alves observed that more studies about the interfaces between humans and the soils with which they work "could be an aid to the advancement of formal soil knowledge, also giving an opportunity to understanding and valuing local soil knowledge."

The potentials seem relevant in any society.

Title: Local knowledge and soil use: an ethnopedological approach

Communicator activities approaching

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 08:45:00 CDT

April 16-18, 2008
"Leading the charge." 2008 Agri-Marketing Conference of the National Agri-Marketing Association (NAMA) in Kansas City, Missouri USA.
Information: www.nama.org

June 19-21, 2008
"Break from the gate in 2008." Seminar of American Horse Publications in Saratoga Springs, New York.
Information: www.americanhorsepubs.org/programs/seminars

June 21-24, 2008
"Hook, line and sinker: restock your communications tacklebox." Institute of the Cooperative Communicators Association (CCA) in Portland, Maine.
Information: www.communicators.coop

Earthy evidence of information management.

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 08:30:00 CDT

We close this issue of ACDC News with a headline that caught our eye recently in a farm paper. It may hold special interest for agricultural editors and extension communicators:

"Learn how to manage horse manure from MSU extension"

Oh, those modifier gremlins.

Rediscovering agricultural advisory (extension) services.

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:00:00 CST

"After a period of neglect, agricultural advisory services have returned strongly to the international development agenda," according to Jock R. Anderson of the World Bank. In a background paper for World Development Report 2008, he said he considers it "highly appropriate" to acknowledge the roles and challenges of an effective evolution of agricultural advisory services in the coming decades.

What new functions for extension might we expect? Anderson cited several beyond the conventional function of providing knowledge for improved agricultural productivity:

Linking smallholder farmers to high-value and export markets
Promoting environmentally sustainable production techniques
Coping with the effects of HIV/AIDS and other health challenges that affect agriculture

Title: Agricultural advisory services
Posted at: www.worldbank.org

New source of grammar hints.

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 09:45:00 CST

More than two dozen grammar hints are now available online from the Writing Special Interest Group of ACE (Association for Communication Excellence in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Life and Human Sciences). Topics range from informal spelling and "the forgotten semicolon" to accuracy of online language translation services. These hints, generated during the past three years, were posted online in December.

Posted at: http://www.aceweb.org/sigs/writing/grammar.php

Six reasons to celebrate Ag Day.

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 09:30:00 CST

As National Agriculture Day approaches on March 20, the Agriculture Council of America offers six reasons for recognizing - and celebrating - it. They are described briefly in an article, "The importance of ag literacy," we added recently to the ACDC collection.

You can read the reasons at: www.agday.org/education/celebrate.php

Why is it taking so long to build bridges between formal and informal science?

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 09:15:00 CST

Professor Anil Gupta, Indian Institute of Management, asked that question in a 2007 commentary we have added to the ACDC collection. He emphasized how bridging the gap between scientific research and local solutions could be beneficial, citing examples of effective traditional solutions practiced by local farmers. Several reasons may account for this gap, he observed:

Scientists often question the value of traditional knowledge.
Peer pressure may push them and their students to focus on high-impact research with wide visibility and more potential for career advancement.
A bias towards chemical-intensive technologies may exist, and researchers may be put off by differing protocols for validating non-chemical innovations.
Local innovators and holders of traditional knowledge have feeble, fragmented and easily-ignored influence on policies that might help bridge the gap.

The author identified several communications-based measures to help bridge this gap in any part of the world.

Title: How local knowledge can boost scientific studies
Posted at: http://www.scidev.net/dossiers/index.cfm?fuseaction=dossierreaditem&dossier=7&type=3&itemid=581&language=1

Several favorite journalism films with a rural touch.

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 09:00:00 CST

In response to a recent call for favorites, we are pleased to pass along these recommended favorites:

Country (with Jessica Lange). It is "another movie that's interesting but bleak. Tie-in with farm market reports."
Year of Living Dangerously. "Not rural per se but an excellent journalism movie."
State Fair (original version). "Loved the family's excitement in their trip to the Iowa State Fair…and the friendly competition at the livestock exhibit."
Sweetland. "Gritty and romantic tale of rural Minnesota life."

What others might you add to the list? Send them by return e-note. Thanks.

See the 2008 winners in Geographical photo competition.

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 08:45:00 CST

Twelve winners are featured in the February issue of Geographical, official magazine of the Royal Geographical Society, UK. You can view a gallery of honored photos that were selected from more than 1,000 entries from all over the world. Categories include people and culture, wildlife, landscape, travel and environmental issues. You will see some outstanding rural photos among them.

Posted at: www.geographical.co.uk/features/photostories/poty_winners_feb08.html

More cooperation - less conflict - in ground water planning.

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 08:30:00 CST

If you are involved in communicating about water use you may find interest in a recent article that confirms and describes the vital role you can play. Authors Vincent C. Tidwell and Cors van den Brink noted how access to ground water can often be contentious. Scientists can contribute to planning efforts in terms of technical feasibility. But communicators can help provide the vital connecting link - "a process for inclusive and transparent sharing of ideas." Authors described two examples illustrating how "cooperative modeling" processes can lead to successful ground water plans. These processes involve shared, adaptive learning/communications.

Title: Cooperative modeling: linking science, communication and ground water planning
Posted at: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1745-6584.2007.00394.x

Communicator activities approaching

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 08:15:00 CST

March 27-28, 2008
North Central Regional Workshop of Cooperative Communicators Association (CCA) in Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota USA.
Information: DeeDee Wilking at dwilking@vistacom.com

April 10, 2008
"The nuts and bolts of ag communication." Midwest Regional Design and Writing Workshop hosted by the Livestock Publications Council (LPC) and American Agricultural Editors' Association (AAEA) at Johnston, Iowa USA.
Information: Diane Johnson at dianej@flash.net or Den Gardner at ageditors@aol.com

April 16-18, 2008
"Leading the charge." 2008 Agri-Marketing Conference of the National Agri-Marketing Association (NAMA) in Kansas City, Missouri USA.
Information: www.nama.org

What's this about upheavals?

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 08:00:00 CST

Thanks to Don Schwartz who caught an interesting twist on a recent headline in ACDC News: "Survey shows an upheaval in eating patterns."

He asked: "'upheaval' - re a food story?"

"Could have been worse," he added, passing along these headlines we are sure no rural journalists wrote:

"New study of obesity looks for larger test group"
"Kids make nutritious snacks"
"Cold wave linked to temperatures"

An eye-opener: communications (and trust) in complex agricultural networks.

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 10:00:00 CST

Supply chain management has emerged as a concept for coordinating functions and actions of companies throughout value chains. Seldom have we seen such a graphic portrayal of the complexities of supply chain management than in a recent analysis by Tobias Hausen and Melanie Fritz, University of Bonn, Germany. And seldom have we seen so clearly how effective communicating is pivotal to the success of it.

Authors describe a supply network involved in production of crops such as grain or produce. Not only is the network incredibly complex. It also is characterized by:

Unforeseeable changes in demand
Long lead times for production of inputs
A fragmented tree structure for flow of materials
System breakdowns that cause inefficient flows of material and information

"Several key areas of the network are in need for better communication and collaboration between network participants," the authors observed. And calls for information exchanges within such networks are revealing lack of trust among companies.

Title: Supply chain management in the life science sector
Posted at: http://ageconsearch.umn.edu > Conduct title search

What's the difference between a barn cat and a house cat?

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 09:45:00 CST

How many eggs does a chicken lay in one day? Do pigs scratch their backs? These and other questions from youngsters get addressed in an educational video series, "On the Farm," from an award-winning educator, farmer, videographer and producer in upstate New York. Chris Fesko's video series has earned more than 20 awards, including the Parent's Choice 2002 Silver Honor Award.

Title: Do pigs scratch their backs?
Information at: http://www.fesko.com/pigs.html

Should we now be thinking of Development 2.0?

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 09:30:00 CST

Chris Addison raised that question in a journal article about the emerging range of facilities and innovations in web-based and internet services. Web logs. Wikis. Newsreaders. Swikki. Social bookmarking. Dgroups. A0.com. The author described use of new technologies such as these, then addressed other implications for development work. For example:

What used to be a three-year assignment for technical assistance on a development projects may become brief visits supplemented by Web 2.0 tools.
A development project that used to depend on ground transportation may get handled with a web site, a Dgroup and a computer.
New web applications are being used for dialogue, research, publishing and other aspects of development projects.

"How profoundly is the development of communications, and in particular the Internet, changing the development community and the way in which it works?" Addison asked.

Title: Web 2.0: a new chapter in development in practice?

About a delicate dance.

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 09:15:00 CST

Effective communicating is at the heart of healthy, long-term relationships between land owners and land operators, according to an article in Corn and Soybean Digest. Reporter Karen Bernick identified suggestions for operators:

Keep lines of communication open
Be a good steward (e.g., controlling weeds, fertilizing appropriately)
Know what is important to each landlord
Show you care
Be fair

Title: A delicate dance
Posted at: http://cornandsoybeandigest.com/ag-issues/delicate-dance-landowner-situations

"Freelance benefit program." An oxymoron?

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 09:00:00 CST

That question came to mind when we saw the title of freelancer Claudette Lacombe's article. It appeared in the September 2007 issue of "The Farm Journalist," newsletter of the Canadian Farm Writers' Federation. What benefit program for a freelancer?

Actually, Claudette has found a remarkable benefit that fits right in with her writing about water management issues in rural Alberta. The article reports how she has turned her yard into an urban xeriscape demonstration project. It also identifies a variety of benefits she - and others - are gaining from it.

Title: Freelance benefit program
Posted at: http://www.cfwf.ca/farmj/FJ__September07.pdf

Special thanks to John Brien of Australia

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 08:45:00 CST

Special thanks to John Brien of Australia, for contributing to the ACDC collection nearly a dozen new documents that help reveal his productive scholarship of more than 50 years. They are part of a thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Agricultural Science at the University of Queensland (his second doctorate, actually). The thesis title is "Research contributions in agricultural extension and communication."

This thesis contains 16 selected presentations, reports and books dated between 1969 and 1988. We previously had some of his materials in the ACDC collection and are delighted to add 11 more from this thesis. They reflect the valuable contributions of a respected scholar. You can identify them by conducting an Author search (Brien) on the ACDC search page. Let us know if you would like to gain access to them.

Any favorite journalism films - with a rural touch?

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 08:30:00 CST

The Commonwealth Press Union reported recently that subscribers to the online Small Newspaper Information Exchange had discussed their favorite journalism films. They identified more than 50 films.

Do you have any favorite journalism-related films that, in some way, involve rural life, people or activities? Your nominations can come from any era - any region or country.

Please send the title(s) and we will report back to all about this important type of agricultural communicating. Reply to us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu.

Communicator activities approaching

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 08:15:00 CST

March 6-8, 2008
"Close-up look at agriculture in transition." Meeting of the Agricultural Relations Council (ARC) at Research Triangle Park, Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, USA.
Information: Carroll Merry at cmerry@countryside-marketing.com or 262-253-6902

March 6-7, 2008
Meeting of the Midwest Region of Cooperative Communicators Association (CCA) with the Missouri Association of Publication (MAP) Summit in Columbia, Missouri, USA.
Information: Tammy Simmons at tsimmons@kaec.org

March 9-15, 2008
"Global entrepreneurship: the role of international agricultural and extension education." Conference of the Association for International Agricultural and Extension Education (AIAEE) at E.A.R.T.H. University, Costa Rica Information: http://www.aiaee.org/conferences.html

April 10, 2008
"The nuts and bolts of ag communication." Midwest Regional Design and Writing Workshop hosted by the Livestock Publications Council (LPC) and American Agricultural Editors' Association (AAEA) at Johnston, Iowa, USA.
Information: Diane Johnson at dianej@flash.net or Den Gardner at ageditors@aol.com

More rural computer language.

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 08:00:00 CST

We close this issue of ACDC News with several out-on-the-web computer terms about surviving those rural winter chills.

Hard drive: Getting home in the wintertime
Download: Getting the firewood off the truck
Ram: The thing that spits firewood
Log off: Cooling the wood stove down
Windows: What to shut when it's cold outside

"Co-op Kids" featured in a creative photo calendar.

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 10:00:00 CST

Thanks to the Cooperative Communicators Association for alerting us to a creative project of the Tennessee Farmers Cooperative. A popular calendar features this winning combination:

Portraits or candid photos
entered by customers, members or employees
featuring children
at special events or in everyday farm activities
sporting their Co-op colors or
displaying Co-op feed products or
showing off their favorite pets or farm animals

You can view winning entries, by month, in the 2008 calendar. It was announced in the December 2007 issue of Tennessee Cooperator.

Posted at: www.ourcoop.com/cooperator/december2007.pdf
Proceed to page 27.

Second series of "Kill it, cook it, eat it" airs on BBC Three.

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 09:45:00 CST

A second television series in the United Kingdom about how farm animals make their way to the dining table aired on BBC Three Digital during January. This time the producers focused on young animals: veal, milk-fed lambs, kid goats and suckling pigs. According to the BBC description:

"The programme asks how these animals are raised, where they come from, and how they're killed and gutted. Should taste take priority over the welfare of the animal? And, ultimately how young is too young when it comes to eating baby animals?"

Thanks to Joe Watson and Don Gomery of the Guild of Agricultural Journalists for alerting us to this series, which reportedly stirred thousands of e-mails from viewers. The programs are available to play online only in the UK.

Among sources of information about the series: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/programmes/kill_it/index.shtml
www.fwi.co.uk/articles/2008/01/11/108957/farming-on-the-tv-a-special-report.html

What motivates growers involved in community supported agriculture.

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 09:30:00 CST

An article in HortTechnology identified goals that motivate growers to take part in CSA, an alternative model of farming in which consumers contract to receive a share of food harvests.

CSA growers are motivated by multiple goals, according to researcher E.C. Worden. Marketing was the goal mentioned most often, followed by interest in educating consumers. Community wellbeing and environmental interests also motivated these growers. The marketing motive was found to be "not solely monetary, but also philosophical" in the sense of achieving right livelihood and strengthening society's relationships among (a) consumers, (b) the food they eat and (c) the land from which it comes.

Title: Grower perspectives in community supported agriculture

How to tap into one of the largest collections of agricultural information.

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 09:15:00 CST

A recent article in the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists newsletter, IFAJ News, offered tips to agricultural journalists for gathering information from AGRIS. It is the online database of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. As such it can become your doorway to a collection of more than two million documents. Joe Zumalt, ACDC coordinator and librarian here at the University of Illinois, outlined step-by-step procedures, using sample topics.

Title: AGRIS: an FAO information resource for the agricultural journalist
Posted at: http://www.ifaj.org/newsletter/december07/Zamultstory.pdf

Popcorn processing risk kept quiet?

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 09:00:00 CST

We have added to the ACDC collection a recent article from OMB (Office of Management and Budget) Watch about a health risk that the organization believes federal regulatory agencies have known for years and kept silent. This risk involves use of diacetyl, a flavoring added to many types of food, including artificial butter flavoring in microwave popcorn. It is linked to a debilitating disease, "popcorn workers lung."

The article described lack of action by federal agencies and reported on unsuccessful efforts of media to gain access to information about research by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Title: Federal agencies knew of diacetyl dangers and kept silent
Posted at: http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/3970

Communications - missing link in participatory agricultural research?

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 08:45:00 CST

Much has been written about benefits when farmers work with scientists in planning and carrying out agricultural research. A recent article in Appropriate Technology highlighted need for stronger communications in such efforts. It explained how scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) carried out crop research with farmers in a region of southern Mexico. Among the findings reported:

"Interaction with farmers provided maize breeders with invaluable information on the traits that are of local importance."
"Farmers, in turn, learnt about maize production and post-harvest storage."
"However…while the participatory research benefited scientists, only a relatively small number of farmers actually benefited directly."

Findings called for research organizations to work closely with local outreach organizations, which are better placed to link farmers and researchers by virtue of their long-term, continuing contact.

Title: Participatory research: a catalyst for greater impact

Rural communicator activities approaching

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 08:30:00 CST

February 13-15, 2008
"Experience ICT Africa." Continental information and communications technologies conference sponsored by the NEPAD Council (New Partnership for Africa's Development) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Information: http://ictafrica.nepadcouncil.org

April 10, 2008
"The nuts and bolts of ag communication." Midwest Regional Design and Writing Workshop hosted by the Livestock Publications Council (LPC) and American Agricultural Editors' Association (AAEA) at Johnston, Iowa, USA.
Information: Diane Johnson at dianej@flash.net or Den Gardner at ageditors@aol.com

I am the journalist.

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 08:15:00 CST

We close this issue of ACDC News with a creed published in the June/July 2007 issue of Quill magazine. This creed does not focus specially on agricultural journalism, but surely includes our field of interest. Frank Crane is credited with expressing it during the early 1900s. We have taken the liberty of refining gender aspects.

I am the journalist.
I do not judge. I record.
I do not praise or blame. I tell.
The ethics of my profession may be told in one word - truth.
No one can buy my light.
No one can buy my silence.

Happy New Year and welcome to this first 2008 issue

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 10:00:00 CST

Happy New Year and welcome to this first 2008 issue of news from the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center.