News Video Series Allows Farmers to Interact with Consumers through Social Media

The Executive Director of Farm and Food Care Saskatchewan says a new series of videos is enabling farmers to interact with the public through social media.
Farm and Food Care Saskatchewan, through its canadianfoodfocus.org web site, has released the first of a series of videos designed to help non-farming consumers relate to farmers and life on the farm.

Farm and Food Care Saskatchewan Executive Director Clinton Monchuk says, when you start following social media, you'll see what are called reals or short videos so, instead of telling people what is going on, they can be shown what's going on on the farm.

Quote-Clinton Monchuk-Farm and Food Care Saskatchewan:

The first thing we did is with Martinka Chicks,That's a grain and a chicken farm near St. Benedict, Saskatchewan and the main focus is around Tiffany Martinka.Tiffany and her family, her husband and her two boys and daughter just walking through a little bit of the life of what she would go through in a typical day.

It starts off with her talking about what she's wearing going out to take her kids to hockey or dance or what ever it happens to be and then saying, "these are my outside cloths.To protect our birds inside the barn, I have to put a change of cloths on to protect them from whatever's happening outside to what's inside."

That's one of the key messages getting across to the people who are watching that this is how Tiffany has to interact on a regular day.She has to make sure that her outside cloths or town cloths do not interact with the birds inside the barn to keep them safe.It's a learning experience but you're doing it subtly in a way that people accidentally learn a little bit more about biosecurity.

Monchuk says, to start off, five videos were produced with the Martinkas and the plan is to increase that to include other farms.He says we know people are interested in the content and they want to learn more and they are continually come back.