Ag Education Planned for Urban Reporters

The organization known as – The Hand That Feeds U.S. - has been organized to educate urban news reporters, to answer agriculture’s critics and explain why farmers and farm policy are so important to the nation’s future. The American Sugar Alliance, the peanut, rice, cotton, corn, sorghum, and ethanol industries have joined forces and have introduced their web presence. www.thehandthatfeedsus.org.

Andy Quinn, a Minnesota corn and ethanol producer, admits, - we’re the best farmers in the world, but we’re far from being master communicators. He says; - for too long, we’ve let a handful of environmental extremists and coalitions, bankrolled by big business, define our industry in the news.

Linda Raun, a rice grower from Texas, is a spokesperson for the campaign. Raun says, - it makes no sense that we’re being demonized in many of the nation’s top media markets. But, she says - it’s not the journalists’ fault. We haven’t done a good enough job telling them our story.

Texas cotton farmer and coalition member Steve Verett pledged - we plan to build long-lasting relationships with journalists and show them that family owned and operated farms, not giant agribusinesses, are the true face of agriculture.