I’ve been fortunate to have begun participating in an eye-opening meeting of minds, known in the Twitter-verse as Agchat. A growing group primarily composed of farmers and others associated with agriculture. Where else can one gain perspective on the challenges facing farmers today, some of who are literally twittering from their tractors while they prepare for this years growing season?
The dedication of the participants is staggering & the speed of information even more so. Participants are simply requested to state their name, location and interest in agriculture for participation. The entire conversation is conducted in the open of Twitter, bared to the scrutiny of all. A remarkable act of openness for an industry that has been under legislative attack from both environmental and animal rights groups. The visibility has, of course, made the entire endeavour into a target of attack, as illustrated by Paula Crossfield of Civil Eats blog in her article, “Crashing the Twitter Agchat”.
The un’Civil Eats’ attack gives the appearance of spawning from two main items:
- Pique that hobby-level farming is not accepted as being capable of producing at the same level as commercial-level farming. Unfortunately, hobby-level farming is the equivalent of amateur level sports participation it just isn’t the same game as the big leagues. A very few amateurs may be capable of performing at the professional level but the majority don’t have the skill or ability, let alone the dedication. However, a great number of amateurs are fantastic at Monday Morning quarterbacking those performing at the highest levels.
- Pure jealousy that neither Ms. Crossfield or one of her peers came up with the Agchat idea first, as demonstrated by the beginning her own competing Twitter chat within 48 hours of participating in her first Agchat session. I was present for Ms. Crossfield’s participation in the May 5th Agchat and noticed no significant difference in the treatment of her questions over anyone else’s.
To the regular contributors to Agchat, I can only say thank you for the openness demonstrated so far and to remind them of two age old sayings “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” and “T’aint nothing but sour grapes, anyhow”
Copyright 2009 by Erica Saundershttp://AR-HR.com
All rights reserved
Thanks Erica your comments tonight in agchat on twitter are greatly appreciated. It is sad to see how fast the other side is willing to go negative when we as the “aggies” on twitter are trying to have positive open dialogue.
Great job but as I am thinking about what sustainability is — why does the other side have to draw a line in the sand. I’m not against organic — so why do they have to continually attack those who don’t do it their way?