A Bayer CropScience-led campaign aims to help consumers learn more about the agriculture industry and provide meals to U.S. families. The #Thankful4Ag campaign is now in its third year.
“Agriculture faces a lot of challenges, and consumers are more interested than ever about where their food comes from and how it is produced,” said Jeff Donald external communications lead for Bayer CropScience. “Ninety-five percent of the U.S. population has no connection to agriculture; they don’t have family or friends that are in agriculture, and they don’t live in agricultural communities. That creates a breeding ground for misperceptions and misunderstandings [of] the work farmers do and how they produce food.”
Ergo, Bayer looked for ways to bridge the gap between consumers and farmers.
“We know when consumers are looking for information, they really trust farmers more than anyone else,” Donald said. “The Thankful4Ag concept is a way to showcase the work farmers are doing in a very consumer-friendly, social media, sharable way.”
Visitors to the Thankful4Ag website can take a quiz to find out what kind of farmer they were meant to be. Once they take the quiz, participants meet growers from across the U.S., such as a southern Georgia kale grower, an Idaho potato grower, a Wisconsin dairy producer or a New York apple grower.
For the second year, Bayer CropScience teamed up with Feeding America to assist with the issue of food-insecure households in the U.S.
“Every time someone goes to the Thankful4Ag website, takes the quiz or shares the Thankful4Ag hashtag, that triggers a $1 donation from Bayer to Feeding America, which has a network of food banks all over the country,” Donald said. “With that dollar, Feeding America is able to provide 11 meals.”
Last year, Bayer donated 200,000 meals to Feeding America.
“The response has blown us away this year,” Donald said of the program, which ran from Sept. 24 to Oct. 31. “We’re up to well over 300,000 meals donated.”
Bayer CropScience also worked with country music artist Luke Bryan this year to sponsor his annual Farm Tour.
“He grew up on a peanut farm in Georgia, and one of his passions is to give back to farmers,” Donald said. “Luke did a video that’s on the website. Hopefully, that’s a partnership we will be able to continue.”
Donald said it’s been exciting to see participation on the website grow.
“It’s been fun to watch people share their quiz results and who they are thankful for,” he said.
Even though the campaign for the meal donations has ended, Donald said, it is important to continue the conversation.
“The beauty of being on social media is it doesn’t stop anybody from sharing their experiences about why they are thankful for ag,” he said.
Learn more at www.thankful4ag.com.
Source: Agri-News