FORMER rural journalist Charlie Arnot's role as the United States Centre for Food Integrity chief executive officer has seen him become an in-demand speaker across the globe on how to promote trust in agriculture.
Mr Arnot and AgCommunicators managing director Deanna Lush were guest speakers at a Rural Media SA breakfast event held on Wednesday last week.
The Centre for Food Integrity is an not-for-profit organisation with a sole focus to promote trust in food systems.
“The aim of the Centre for Food Integrity is to help food systems earn consumer trust,” Mr Arnot said.
“Trust is something that has to be earned on an ongoing basis. Today, there is more scepticism about farming than ever before.”
Mr Arnot grew up in south-east Nebraska in the US and graduated from the University of Nebraska with a Bachelor of Journalism degree.
He went on to spend more than 25 years working in communications, public relations and issues management within the food system.
That experience had led him to become a trusted counsellor to other CEOs, government leaders and executives and a respected industry adviser on issues within the food system.
He is also the founder and president of Look East, a US employee-owned consulting firm.
Mr Arnot said it was not necessarily extreme activists that farmers should be concerned about, but rather how to connect with the majority of consumers.
“The extreme fringe is very loud and unpleasant but it is disregarded by most of the public,” he said.
“Extremists grab attention but research has shown it has limited effect because people don’t react to them.”
But, he said cases of corporate greed had a dramatic effect on the public’s perception of agriculture.
An example of this was a salmonella outbreak in the US, which and was traced back to unsafe practices such as mould and birds’ droppings being found on product.
In the end, nine people died due to poisoning from peanut butter.
“It was a cause of putting monetary interest and profits above public interest,” Mr Arnot said.
On the other hand, Mr Arnot said a tale that painted a more positive picture of agriculture was the story of American agronomist Norman Borlaug.
Mr Arnot said if these kind of stories were spread, it would help boost agriculture’s image.
“He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for creating the Green Revolution and is credited with saving more lives than anyone else in the history of humankind,” he said.
Promoting the science behind agriculture will not necessarily build trust with consumers, according to Mr Arnot.
“Norman Borlaug said in 2000 that we have the technology to feed 10 billion people, but the question is whether we’ll be permitted to use that technology,” he said.
“We’ve seen phenomenal consolidation and industrialisation of the sector, which has led food to be safer and more affordable than ever before.
“But while consumers like farmers, they’re not sure they like farming. They like the people but not necessarily the practices.”
Mr Arnot said a challenge for the sector was that traditional communication models were nowhere near as effective as they used to be, due to the influence of social media.
“Today’s consumers are crowd sourcing knowledge,” he said.
“Information is coming from friends and family’s Facebook posts.”
Mr Arnot said a quote from the actor Alan Alda rang very true: “People today consider science just another opinion”.
“A survey of 6000 consumers found that shared values were more important in building trust than showing technical skills or expertise,” he said.
“Focusing on building trust is much more effective than defending practices.
“Transparency is the most important strategy. Share information that’s both good and bad, as people want to make sure nothing’s being white-washed.”
