More producers are turning to the Internet and social media to share good news stories about Canadian agriculture. One of those producers is Adrienne Ivey, who runs a family cattle operation at Ituna, Saskatchewan, and shares her stories on her blog, viewfromtheranchporch.com.

“With the increase in popularity of social media, I really started to become concerned about the misinformation that’s out there online and everywhere in the world about our food,” Ivey said. “Fear sells, and people were really starting to have concerns about how their food is produced.

“People have questions and they really started to recognize that some of the things that you see online aren’t true, but it’s really difficult for them to know what they can trust,” she added. “It was a great chance for me to be able to connect with some of them and share the story of what happens on our ranch, the good parts and the not so good parts, and the truth of how the food actually gets to your plate.”

Ivey says she started her blog about five years ago and has been overwhelmed with the response.

“It’s been amazing just how interested people are,” she said. “They don’t get to live the life on the ranch like I do every day, but they really want to hear more about it.”

Along with her blog, Ivey has had a chance to share her stories to large audiences in other ways. In March, she was one of the speakers at the TEDxRPLCentralLibrary event in Regina, and her presentation is available to view online as part of a growing collection of TED Talks.

“It was a great opportunity to talk with a lot of very urban-centred people about what happens on our farm,” she said. “What I spoke about was… things about your food can sometimes sound scary if you don’t understand them. Words like hormones, antibiotics or chemicals, but the reality is, they have important scientific value on our farm, and if you have more questions, just ask the people who are producing the food, because they’re all just people… the people producing their food are moms and dads and brothers and sisters and care about they’re producing because we’re feeding it to our own children as well.

“It was great to have that captive audience and then also to be able to tap into the whole TED network and now have an online video that can be viewed and shared, and hopefully have a bit of a life of its own,” she added.

Ivey also had a chance to attend the McDonald’s Worldwide Conference in Orlando, Florida, in April, where she made a presentation to thousands of McDonald’s restaurant owners and executives.

“There were over 15,000 people registered… it’s 23 times larger than the town I live at,” she said. “They just wanted me to come down and talk about my experience as a rancher in Canada producing the beef that goes into McDonald’s hamburgers, the idea of sustainable beef and what that means on our ranch. Their executives also wanted to know how McDonald’s can help bridge the gap between beef producers and the consumers who are eating those burgers. Everyone from McDonald’s was so open and excited to learn more and to hear about my experience.”

Ivey added she was excited to go to the McDonald’s conference, especially since the restaurant chain is a major supporter of the Canadian agriculture industry.

“They have been such a champion for not only beef producers but for Canadian farmers of all kinds,” she said. “When you see their ‘Not Without Canadian Farmers’ marketing campaign where they place us, as primary producers, as the champions of the food system. And they were pioneering in the sustainable beef project, which was the first time in my experience where an end user had come to us as an industry and said, ‘here’s our end goal, can we work together to figure out the right steps along the way to get there?’ Instead of just coming in like some other restaurants or end users and saying, ‘we want you to do A, B and C… it doesn’t matter if it makes sense on your farms or not, but we want to be able to market around that, so here’s what we want you to do.’ That was never McDonald’s approach. It was very collaborative and it put us all on the same team and working together towards an end goal. It was really exciting to be able to work with somebody who wants to work with you.”

Ivey adds today, more than ever, people are willing to listen and hear from those directly connected with the industry, and it is easier than ever now with social media.

“Back in the day, if you couldn’t break into mainstream media, then it was impossible to get your story out there,” she said. “But now, with the combination of mainstream media and social media, the whole world is open to hearing our stories. It’s more important than ever to have our stories out there because there are more negative stories, misinformation and outright lies that are available online, we need to be able to have the true side of the story. The more that’s out there, the more balanced of a conversation we can have.”