42 pages, The 2006 United Nations report “Livestock’s Long Shadow” provided the first global estimate of the livestock sector’s contribution to anthropogenic climate change and warned of dire environmental consequences if business as usual continued. In the subsequent 17 years, numerous studies have attributed significant climate change impacts to livestock. In the USA, one of the largest consumers and producers of meat and dairy products, livestock greenhouse gas emissions remain effectively unregulated. What might explain this? Similar to fossil fuel companies, US animal agriculture companies responded to evidence that their products cause climate change by minimizing their role in the climate crisis and shaping policymaking in their favor. Here, we show that the industry has done so with the help of university experts. The beef industry awarded funding to Dr. Frank Mitloehner from the University of California, Davis, to assess “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” and his work was used to claim that cows should not be blamed for climate change. The animal agriculture industry is now involved in multiple multi-million-dollar efforts with universities to obstruct unfavorable policies as well as influence climate change policy and discourse. Here, we traced how these efforts have downplayed the livestock sector’s contributions to the climate crisis, minimized the need for emission regulations and other policies aimed at internalizing the costs of the industry’s emissions, and promoted industry-led climate “solutions” that maintain production. We studied this phenomenon by examining the origins, funding sources, activities, and political significance of two prominent academic centers, the CLEAR Center at UC Davis, established in 2018, and AgNext at Colorado State University, established in 2020, as well as the influence and industry ties of the programs’ directors, Dr. Mitloehner and Dr. Kimberly Stackhouse-Lawson. We developed 20 questions to evaluate the nature, extent, and societal impacts of the relationship between individual researchers and industry groups. Using publicly available evidence, we documented how the ties between these professors, centers, and the animal agriculture industry have helped maintain the livestock industry’s social license to operate not only by generating industry-supported research, but also by supporting public relations and policy advocacy.
8pgs, Following is Agri Marketing's annual listing of the largest marketing communications agencies whose clients sell products and services within the agricultural industry and/or to the rural lifestyle consumer.
10 pages, This article proposes combining public relations and development communication insights so that organizations, particularly in the public sector, can engage and empower rural communities to adopt and exploit infrastructure developments for mutual benefit. Applying appreciative inquiry to explore the communication process involved in the development of micro-hydro power plants in Kulon Progo Regency, Indonesia, this article offers a view from those who are regarded as the target of communication, as the opposed to those take an organizational standpoint. The study proposes a new development project communication model which seeks to initiate, secure and sustain positive community outcomes and meet the project initiators’ requirements. This is achieved through collaboration and the gradual relinquishment of power and decision-making from the latter to the former. The model emphasizes the importance of the processes of communication as well as outcomes, and considers rural communities as having agency, rather than as objects of or for development. By embracing community assets such as local knowledge and contextual wisdom and the characteristics of collective communities in non-Western countries such as togetherness, reciprocity, a strong sense of shared destiny, locality, and fraternity, the model offers a community centric approach which encourages progressive community empowerment and ownership. The evidence points to the impacts for both communities and governments being more beneficial and sustainable than current communication practices.
18pgs, The novel coronavirus was first discovered in Wuhan, China in December 2019. This zoonotic disease quickly spread through over 100 countries, including the U.S. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global health emergency by the end of January 2020. Soon after, many U.S. states issued mandatory stay-at-home orders, which caused adverse effects for agricultural businesses and food supply chains. During this crisis, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shared information through social media platforms such as Facebook. This study sought to understand how the CDC framed direct communication to the public about issues related to COVID-19 using Facebook videos. Five videos directly related to COVID-19 were selected from the CDC’s Facebook page for analysis. A content and framing analysis was used to determine emergent frames and the use of organization-public relationship (OPR) indicators to better understand how a public entity communicates with the public during a pandemic. Emergent frames were community, protecting yourself, encouragement to take action, understanding, and fear. A conversational tone of voice was used in four out of the five videos, and each video demonstrated the use of at least one OPR indicator. Implications from this work reinforce that Facebook videos can be used to communicate the importance of scientific information using conversational voice and OPR indicators. It is recommended that agricultural communicators include OPR indicators in social media videos during other similar zoonotic disease crises. Future research should seek to understand the public’s response to this type of scientific communication.
28 pages, Large broiler chicken companies have been under pressure by consumers to reduce their carbon footprint, improve animal welfare and labor practices, and enhance environmental quality across the industry. This study examines how large broiler chicken companies have addressed sustainability within video content directed toward consumers and posted on YouTube. To conceptualize this study, we used the 1990 Farm Bill definition of agricultural sustainability. It is important to examine articulations of agricultural sustainability as company messages often incorporate sustainability philosophies and ideologies while referencing specific production practices and goals. This study used qualitative content analysis to analyze 440 videos, and framing analysis to closely examine a subset of 55 videos, from three of the largest broiler chicken companies in the United States. The framing analysis revealed that stewardship, natural state, and catalyst for change were the three most frequently used sustainability frames across the companies. These frames focus on elements of caretaking, responsibility, and public accountability, and apply these ideals to people, chickens, and profit within the organization. Few discussions of environmental stewardship were found within our analysis. While frames were not necessarily connected to production practices, each company did tend to leverage frames in ways that align with brand positioning. Companies should consider implementing discussions of how production practices affect the environment more directly, since protecting the environment and replenishing natural resources are concepts consumers associate with sustainability.
4 pages., Food insecurity is quickly becoming a key topic in national and international debates. Consequently, series of studies have been conducted on food security and its determinants. However, none of these studies have measured food security among cocoa marketers and have considered the influence of public relations (PR) on food security among cocoa marketers in Nigeria Thus, this study measured food security status and determined the influence of PR strategies on food security of marketers. A combination of purposive and random sampling techniques were employed to select 100 respondents for this study. The analytical tools include: descriptive statistics, food security index and logistic regression analysis. The result revealed that majority of the sampled respondents were males with an average household size of 8 persons. The food security index indicated that 65% and 35% of the respondents were food insecure and secure respectively. The logistic regression indicated that about 53% of the total variation in food security of the wholesale cocoa marketers was accounted for by the estimated explanatory variables. Age of the respondents, marketing margin, household size, credit access and PR strategies were the critical determinants of food security among cocoa marketers in the area. Government should provide PR tools at subsidized rate as well as train marketers on the effective use of these tools. Policies to address irregular network and high airtime tariff challenges associated with the adoption of PR strategies in the country must be supported. Policy aimed at reducing household size should be encouraged.
15 pages., Many U.S. state governments have programs that promote the food grown or made within their state. In this study, the websites of 41 such programs were analyzed for indicators of stewardship, a framework concerned with relationship cultivation. Several of the indicators were observed commonly, demonstrating a generally balanced use of stewardship strategies by the programs. The websites also provided a platform to grow relationships between producers and consumers. One recommendation for managers of statewide food promotion programs, or similar umbrella food brand programs, is to examine their own websites to ensure indicators of all stewardship strategies are present. Though most websites examined in this study posted mission statements, for example, not all of them did. Expressions of gratitude to multiple stakeholder groups were also lacking on many of the websites. Another recommendation for managers is to implement some of the more creative ways programs have practiced stewardship such as giving audiences opportunities to co-create content. Overall, this analysis showed that state-run food promotion programs function as public relations and agricultural communications tools.
