Humanizing agriculture workers can encourage regular Filipinos to support the industry

I’m currently taking my PHD in Communications, and I want to center it on agriculture. This has led me to reading academic papers about the role of agriculture media in helping the agriculture industry.

One of them is “The Role of Agricultural Journalism in Building the Rural South” by C. G. Scruggs and Smith W. Moseley published in the journal Agricultural History (Vol. 53, No. 1, Southern Agriculture Since the Civil War: A Symposium) in January 1979.

I feel that there are similarities between how agriculture journalism was instrumental in the Southern United States then and the Philippines now, with a few exceptions, most of them owing to new technology and the changing demographic of the current time.

While most of agriculture journalism traditionally deals with conveying either hard news or hard facts (as in the case of how-tos and farming tips), it should be acknowledged that it had grown beyond that, and of rate good of the industry.

I am referring to using feature-style coverage when discussing agriculture, whether by audio, video, or text. While data and adherence to science are very important, presenting agriculture insiders as individuals humanizes them and helps the lay audience understand that the agriculture industry isn’t a machine but a community whose wellbeing directly impacts theirs, as there would be no food without farmers and fishers. Focusing on success stories can also help other farmers discover new farming and business techniques.

This, I feel, is an unconventional but ultimately necessary point of view in Philippine agriculture in particular, where the reluctance of many farmers to embrace new methods of farming and doing business have contributed to the stagnation of the industry.

Agriculture journalism is by no way going to “save” the industry, but it hoped that its adherence to the scientific method, melded with the engaging language of lifestyle feature writing, may influence industry practitioners to adopt an experimental mindset when it comes to new techniques both in production and with business practices.

Scruggs and Moesely, write: “It would be fatuous for the agricultural journalist to gesture at the achievement and claim the major role in the accomplishment. But we believe it can be safely said that farm magazines were among the principal engines of change in the agricultural South in the period since the armed conflict of the 1860s.”

One could argue that the Philippines is not a country predisposed to reading, but that is a challenge and not a hindrance. Technology continues to grow at a fast rate that offers journalists and educators numerous channels beyond the written word to get their points across.

Scruggs and Moseley identified “three kinds of material:” first, “an editorial judgment essay by the editor on the burning issue of the moment” next, “news of world or national affairs reprinted from other journals of the day-often without knowledge or permission of the originating publication” and last, “...letters from farmers. This mode of exchange of information between farmers formed the main base of agricultural information found in early publications.”

I believe that agriculture journalism should deviate from this, particularly when it comes to reporting news from other sources without their knowledge or permission. While farmer to farmer problem solving is still valued, scientific findings should also be valued in the field and research and discoveries should be given wider reach to help hasten their adoptability or integration.

That said, great care should be taken not to erase the voice of the farmer or fisher, something that can easily be done by accident. Thus, it is important to arm farmers with the building blocks for them to be able to tell their own story, a barrier lessened by the advent of social media, though it may still be hindered by a lack of internet access.

It is hoped that, through proper training and distribution, agriculture journalists can strengthen the importance of information dissemination in the agriculture industry, particularly in a country with a majority that doesn’t particularly care for hard information, with the intent of strengthening the industry as a whole. If Scruggs and Moseley are to go by, this is possible and has been done:

“Since that time it is safe to say that every major improvement in southern agriculture has been assisted by farm publications. While each publication often had a particular special crusade and can be given major credit in some special area, farm publications vibrated out again and again and again the basic message: produce more bushels or pounds per acre, improve efficiency!”