The Center for Public Issues Education

1. The Center for Public Issues Education 2011 UF/IFAS Regional Advisory Council in Agriculture and Natural Resources

2. Origins of the PIE Center • 2005 - AEC Department received Ag Awareness Grant • Goals included: • Examine current awareness efforts • Lay Groundwork for long-term awareness effort • We learned… • Several groups (statewide and nationwide) have Ag Awareness Programming • Few are well coordinated and sustained on a long-term basis • Despite efforts, we are losing ground in creating a more agriculturally informed society

3. What Others are Saying… • When asked what are the most important agriculture and natural resources issues affecting Floridians, stakeholders have consistently indicated that, regardless of the specific context, the most important priorities that need to be addressed in order to achieve successful resolution of these issues are: • Lack of knowledge of agriculture, our natural resources and the connections between the two; • Lack of civic engagement due to complexity of systems within the agriculture and natural resource sectors.

4. Bridging the Green Divide… • Need to equip ANR organizations to educate, communicate, and lead more effectivelyin order to span the divide between industry and Florida citizens. • There is often a divide between consumer perceptions of ANR practices and the reality of those practices.

5. Past and Current Research Projects: • FCA Magazine Readership Survey Florida Cattlemen’s Association • Communications Campaign Planning and Group FacilitationFlorida Farm Bureau Federation • Social Media ResearchHeartland Ag Coalition • Fertilizer/Red Tide Issues Management Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences • Amendment 4 Public Perception ResearchFlorida Farm Bureau Federation • Benefits and Barriers of Membership in FCAFlorida Cattlemen’s Association • Consumer Perceptions of Agriculture Images, Issues and Phrases Ag Institute of Florida • Organizational Strategic PlanningFNGLA and FSCF • Consumer/opinion leader trend panels IFAS, WLI

6. Florida Consumers’ Perceptions of Agricultural Words, Phrases and Images • Using the PIE Center • Collaborated with Ag Institute of Florida on a qualitative study • Goal of research was to understand how members of general public perceive words, messages and images used to communicate and inform audiences about agriculture • Held 4 focus groups in two areas (Orlando & Sarasota) • Total participants – 36 • About 7 to 8 participants in each group • 18 females, 18 males • Ages rangedfrom 18-80 • Randomnumberselected (random phone numbers in certain zip codes)

7. Focus Group in Action

8. Activity: What do you think of when you look at the differences in these two photos?

10. Focus Group Results

11. Farmer Farm Worker Animal Welfare Animal Rights Family Owned Food Safety Green Industry Words Organic Stewardship Sustainable Agriculture Locally Grown

12. “Farmer” and “Farm Worker” • Farmer = Positive & Farm Owner • Farm Worker = Migrant Worker or Someone who works on a farm • Farm Worker = Negative (migrant workers) • “When you sort of attach illegal migratory words to farm worker then you get negativity, but not when you see the word.”

13. “Animal welfare” and “Animal rights” • Both words = indecisiveness, unsure meaning, questionable positive/negative nature • Animal abuse and identification of organizations • Personal stories

14. “Family owned,” “Locally grown,” and “Food Safety” • Family owned = favorable • Locally grown = positive and not from “somewhere else” • Food safety = distrust, rules and regulations • “Food safety is a misleading term because of large corporations who have powerful lobbies. Even if the meat you’re purchasing has grade A on it , it’s meaningless.” • “Food safety is crap.”

15. “Green industry,” “Sustainable agriculture,” and “Organic” • Green industry = marketing word, not agriculture • Sustainable agriculture = confusion, negative with corporate farms, agricultural practices • Organic = skepticism “When I see organic, it’s being used everywhere, in a week or so there will be organic coca cola. Who is monitoring these crops to make sure they are really organic? That’s what comes to my mind.”

16. Stewardship • In a related study in which the PIE Center partnered with Florida Farm Bureau, the word “stewardship” was tested. • It was discovered that none of the participants in the focus groups had never heard of stewardship as being related to the agriculture industry.

17. Messages and Phrases

18. “Best Management Practices” • Failure • Distrust “I’m really biased about best management practices. I guess I’ve been around them so long that I’ve come to distrust them. If it comes from that high up in the tower, it probably doesn’t work.”

19. “Farmers were the first environmentalists” • “Farmers were the first environmentalists” = they were not • Many respondents remarked that Native Americans were the first environmentalists

20. Future of the PIE Center • 2011Legislative Budget Request (LBR) • LBR partners are PIE Center and Center for Landscape Conservation and Ecology (CLCE) • Entitled “Florida’s Green Jobs, Sound Science and Policy” in order to place focus on jobs/economic value of the green industry • Need to equip the green industry to educate, communicate, and lead more effectivelyin order to span the divide between industry and Florida citizens. • There is often a divide between consumer perceptions of ANR practices and the reality of those practices.

22. INSERT SCREEN SHOT OF BRIDGING THE GREEN DIVIDE –PREFERABLY PAGE THAT HAS TALK TO TALLAHASSEE BUTTON ON IT

23. If We Are Successful… • We will unify ANR sectors around a process that provides a comprehensive, research-based, collaborative, and sustained effort in creating greater public and policy maker understanding of agriculture and natural resources, ensuring a sustainable Florida in the decades ahead.

24. Any questions? www.thePIEcenter.com @piecenter Thank you!