A conversation with Anat Shenker-Osorio, founder of A.S.O. Communications, a progressive political communication bureau known for slogans such as “Don’t take the temperature, change it” and “A great message doesn’t say what’s already popular; a great message makes popular what needs to be said".
We try so hard in the regenerative (and probably any other progressive) space to work on our messaging, how to communicate, how to reach people inside our bubble and beyond. We try to speak to those within the agrochemical and food industry, to make them see how environmentally sound, healthy, and economically interesting a different food and agriculture system could be. But somehow, we haven’t gotten very far. We’re constantly out-lobbied and outsmarted by the very well-organised extractive ag industry. (No, this isn’t an evil conspiracy, but it is definitely well-organised.)
With Anat we dive deep into the world of effective campaigning, messaging, and communication. Because we’re always going to be up against a much higher budget, but let’s at least use the airspace we do have as effectively as possible.
But we’ve got news for you: most people don’t want to join the losing team. So, stop communicating like we’ve already lost. Start getting people to join the small but winning team. Don’t deny reality and never lie. But do understand what makes people listen, and more importantly, what makes them take action: consume differently, protest, organise, vote (if you can).
Because in the end, this is all about who has the power.
==========================
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
No matter what we look like, where we come from or
where we live.
Most of us know that our mostcherished moments involve
nurturing the ones we love.
Want to peddle lies to us aboutthe food that we can eat and
use to ensure our families'health and well-being.
(00:31):
They know that if they canscare us that we will look the
other way while they poison ourair and water and pick our
pockets, stealing the wealththat our work creates.
Pick our pockets, stealing thewealth that our work creates.
A healthy, delicious future isours for the taking.
We can have tomatoes that tastelike one, not like a magazine
(00:56):
photo.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
When and if we kick them to the curb and we produce
healthy, locally made food ourway for our families.
This is the Investing inRegenerative Agriculture and
Food podcast, where we learnmore on how to put money to work
to regenerate soil, people,local communities and ecosystems
, while making an appropriateand fair return.
Welcome to another episodetoday with the founder of ASO, a
progressive politicalcommunication bureau with
(01:28):
slogans like don't take thetemperature but change it.
And the great message doesn'tsay what's already popular, but
a great message makes popularwhat needs to be said.
Welcome, annette.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
And we have a lot to discuss.
I really I've reached outbecause I really enjoyed.
I will see if I can put a link,probably behind the paywall,
but a link to an article I'vereached out because I really
enjoyed.
I will see if I can put a linkit's probably behind the paywall
, but a link to an article Iread on your work in the
Correspondent, which is, let'ssay, a news site in the
Netherlands but paid for by theusers, not by advertisements and
all of those things, whichmeans you get some interesting
(01:59):
insights or some interestinglet's say not super urgent news.
I will see if I can create somekind of share link with that.
Anyway, it was absolutelyfascinating to see and to read
in this case and we're going tolisten to that as well the power
of storytelling, the power ofcommunications and the power of
messaging.
But I want to start with apersonal question we always like
(02:19):
to ask.
In this case, of course, it'snot necessarily focused on soil
and ag but what made you spendmost of your waking hours and
for sure you've told this story650,000 times but spend most of
your waking hours focusing oncommunication and progressive
communication, or, let's say,communication that works, which
is not always the same thing.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Yeah, so I often tell people that there is so, so, so
much outside of our control.
We cannot control what ouropposition says.
We cannot control how muchendless money they are able to
spend to peddle their poisonousideas.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
They always seem to have more than what we have at
our disposal for communication.
A little bit more, just a tinybit more.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
um, we can't control you know the fact that in many
of our countries the media isbought and paid for and
complicit in at best both sidesin debates, that in which, in
fact, there is one side, theside of humanity, uh, and I
guess the other side is the sideof the billionaires.
So in that case there's bothsides, but as far as what is
(03:25):
actually accurate and correctand actionable, there's one side
.
So we can't control any of that.
But what we can control one ofthe few, few, few things that we
can control is the words thatcome out of our mouth and out of
our fingers if we are typingthem.
And so I focus on communicationbecause, first of all, that's
(03:50):
just my sort of educational andprofessional background is in
looking at a field calledcognitive linguistics and
applying it to try to understandwhy certain messages resonate
where others don't.
But the reason that I was drawnto that, besides just coming
from a multilingual householdspeaking multiple languages
myself, being interested in theliteral act of communication
(04:14):
that is, conveying ideas through, you know, these percussive
sounds that we produce with ourvocal folds, but also with our
fingers if it's the written wordis because that's a thing
that's under our power.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
And some examples just for people that don't know
your work, let's say, orsomething that led you into the
progressive world, like wherethey can see things going very,
very wrong.
Or just not hitting, let's say,because we produce an immense
amount of words, immense amountof words, written audio, and
(04:53):
most of it seems to just not hithome or not hit a nerve or not
get to action, even though we'vebeen shouting about climate
change for I don't know how long.
Biodiversity loss, like thelist goes on and on and on and
we'll get to food and egg, likewhat can we learn from, let's
say, what works?
But remember one of your firstencounters to figure out, okay,
what doesn't work and what works, like where was that switch
(05:15):
between, at the end, just otherletters or just between brackets
, like another way of framing,or even using just another word
got a completely differentreaction or even using just
another word, got a completelydifferent reaction.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Sure, I mean, there are so many that go flooding
into my brain.
I can recall so many timesbefore I did sort of more
deliberate consideration andstudy and I spend most of my
time now as a researcher doingbig empirical experiments around
this message versus thatmessage, and what does that mean
and how are people receiving it, and so on.
But when I was a little babycomms person as any baby comms
(05:55):
or non-baby comms person willtell you if they're telling you
the truth, when you look aroundat a lot of the ways that
progressive communication isconstructed, it's just off the
gut, it's just off instinct andthat's not a shock, right?
We are all communicators.
We all communicate, whether itis with gesture, whether it is
(06:18):
with voice, whether it is withwriting, whether it is with you
know pantomime, with facialexpressions, whatever, like
we're all communicating all thetime, and so it's often
difficult for people tounderstand that you can make
deliberate choices around oneword or another.
So, to get to a concreteexample, I don't.
This is far from the first one,it's just one that really
(06:40):
stands out.
That really stands out.
I live in California and in 2008, the same election with the
historic, you know, barack Obamacoming into the White House.
A really incredible moment forthis country in multiple,
multiple dimensions.
But also the year thatCalifornia famously progressive
(07:02):
California, I say that inquotations barred marriage
equality, so passed somethingcalled the Proposition 8, which
was a ballot initiative.
So it was voted on by popularreferendum to ban same-sex
marriage.
Because prior to that, thenmayor of San Francisco, now
governor Gavin Newsom, had beensort of rogue marrying people at
(07:25):
the San Francisco now governorGavin Newsom had been sort of
rogue marrying people at the SanFrancisco Capitol.
And in the lead up to that Prop8 loss, on the basis of the way
that research normally gets donewhich I have a lot of pun
intended on this podcast beefwith it was thought to be the
best messaging and the bestargument to give very practical
(07:49):
discourse.
So married filing jointlyhospital visitation rights, the
right to marry.
This is harming us and this isinterfering with our rights,
because the idea was and thetesting showed that if you
talked about love andrelationships, then people who
were in the opposition kind ofgot sketched out because you
(08:11):
children think of the children,which is, you know, a common
refrain in this kind of arenathe campaign to try to defeat
(08:41):
Prop 8 was had no children in itand had no queer people in it.
It was all like very nicestraight white couples being
like.
You know, I think it'simportant that everyone have the
same rights and you know, ifpeople want to be married, they
should be able to file jointlyon their taxes and visit each
(09:02):
other in the hospital, and sothat was the message that was
sort of blandly inoffensive tothe greatest number of people in
the sample, but it was also themessage that no one in their
right mind would ever repeat,because no one has ever stood in
line at a grocery store andsaid you know, I was just
thinking the other day of myjoint filer and how, when we do
(09:24):
our taxes together, becausethat's not how normal people
conceive of romanticrelationships.
And so when, after that reallyterrible loss, there was a lot
of really really smart researchand campaigning done by a lot of
really smart people, there wasa shift away from the right to
(09:45):
marry to the freedom to marry, ashift away from gay marriage to
marriage equality.
Because as soon as you call itgay marriage, when you take a
noun that is normally naked andyou stick a qualifier on it,
what you're doing linguisticallyis creating a new category.
In essence, what you'reconveying to people tacitly is
(10:06):
well, there's regular marriagewhich presumably is the kind
that I'm in with a man.
And then there's gay marriage,which is this other kind of
marriage, and so that's alreadysort of setting it apart,
whereas marriage equality is avalues-based argument and a
(10:27):
shift away from that sort ofsuper practical hospital
visitation rights, taxes, tolove is love and love makes a
family.
And having ads that shockeractually had gay and lesbian
people in them and showed kidsand was like, yeah, no, we are
doing this because we want tohave families.
We're not going to lie to youand hide that from you because
(10:47):
there's nothing nefarious goingon here.
So that is a long example tosort of walk through the old
thinking and why it didn't workand the new thinking in a case
study that I think all of us arefamiliar with.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
And then it started to work Like it started to hit
all of us are familiar with.
And then it started to workLike it started to hit.
It started to actually, afterthat terrible loss, it started
to move people and move votesacross the US, basically.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Yeah, across the US and outside the US.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
And so when we bring that to other sectors, I don't
know.
I mean, you've done a lot inthe political side of things on
migrants in Europe as well, buton food and agriculture, have
you done any work on that side?
Or, if you haven't, we're goingto apply some of it to, let's
say, the sector we spend most ofour time on.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Yeah.
So what I would say is I'vefrom Wisconsin, which is a big
dairy state, lots and lots andlots of cows, lots and lots and
lots of milk A state wheremargarine was illegal up until
the 1980s because that is howmuch you know butter dominated.
That is one of my favoriteWisconsin fun facts, the fact
that margarine was actuallyillegal.
So I would say I've done sortof adjacent things.
(12:26):
And then I am aware of newercampaigns, for example in Brazil
around industrial agriculturewith the Amazon rainforest.
More recently in Spain aroundkind of locavore growing locally
things.
So what I would say is thatfirst of all, there is a set of
(12:47):
cardinal sins that exist acrossprogressive messaging, and I
often tell people that I couldspend every minute of every day
dealing with what I'm about todescribe in every kind of
progressive issue area and befully employed for the rest of
my life in the most boring waypossible, which I would prefer
not to be doing, just repeatingstuff.
(13:09):
So the first is the tendency tobegin every message with one of
three things, which is boy, haveI got a problem for you?
This is the Titanic, would youlike to buy a ticket?
And we're the losing team.
We lose a lot, we lost recently, so you should join us.
Those are our three favoritethings to say in different
(13:32):
permutations the Titanic,because they know how that movie
ends and they're not excitedabout hopping aboard.
Most people got 99 problems andthey don't want yours.
They are not out shopping forsomething else to be upset about
(13:53):
.
And then most people don't wantto join the losing team.
I think Hollywood, the underdogstory like, has sucked us all
in, and the reason why there isa tendency among advocates and
activists who formulate thismessaging again instinctively
off the cuff is that foractivists by which I mean
(14:14):
ideologically aligned with yourposition and already mobilized,
already doing stuff, that kindof a person, which is a very
small segment of any populationthey love new problems.
Boy, have I got a problem foryou?
Is their love language.
(14:35):
And they're like a new problem,I'm so excited.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
And we're losing, by the way.
So, yeah, let's, let's get onthat, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Like, oh also, this is sort of the righteous fight
and and I will be in this fightno, with some attention to your
issue.
But like, they're certainly notdonating, they're not marching,
(15:12):
they're not protesting, they'renot telling other people about
this, they're not ready tochange their consumptive
behavior, or maybe they areready to change their
consumptive behavior, but that'sabout it.
They're not sort of in powerbuilding and in kind of direct
action.
So for the base, even theprogressive base, they're not
(15:33):
attracted to we're losers.
This is the Titanic.
And also here's a new problem,because they've got life to deal
with, they got things going onand they're not going to sign up
to a lost cause.
So that is one sort of cardinalsin that, like I don't even need
(15:54):
to look across the landscape ofmessaging on Big Ag and so on,
I'm just going out on a limb andsaying that's happening because
I've never seen it nothappening.
I'm just going out on a limband saying that's happening
because I've never seen it nothappening.
The next cardinal sin ispretending like we don't know
where problems come from.
So there is a tendency to writeeverything in what is
(16:16):
technically called in agentiveconstructions.
It's loosely the passive voice,even if it's not sort of like
fits, the exact grammaticaldefinition of the passive voice,
even if it's not sort of likefits, the exact grammatical
definition of the passive voice.
This is when we say things likeharms are increasing, farmland
is lost, you know, naturalrivers are being polluted.
(16:37):
In other issue areas, wages arefalling.
The gap between rich and pooris growing.
Uh, as organizations in mycountry like to say, democracy
is eroding because apparentlydemocracy is a mountain that has
been standing outside for toolong and it just keeps raining.
It's not actually the fact thatthere is a fascist power grab
(16:59):
occurring and literal whitenationalists who are now
deploying the military againstpeople who have literally
weaponized government againstthe American population.
All of this is just sort ofhappening in the ether.
(17:20):
When we don't make clear at theoutset that a problem is
person-made, it becomescognitively inconsistent to ask
for it to be person-fixed.
If wages are falling because, Idon't know, I guess they got
heavy, they ate too much it wasThanksgiving, I'm not sure like
they acquired additional gravityin some way, some way, then why
(17:49):
would you be asking for yourlawmaker to pass a law that says
corporations have to keep awage at a certain point?
And so those two things, andI'll add one more if it's not
too much.
The third sort of cardinal sinwhich happens over and, over and
over again, over and over andover again, is that on the left
(18:10):
we love to sell the recipe andnot the brownie.
So what I mean by that is thatwhen you go and I'm sure none of
your listeners do this, becauseyou are all so healthy and like
good at buying food made out offood, so you'll just have to
trust me that this is a thingthat exists.
You've probably not even seenit because it is not at your
like health food grocery store,but in many stores there is a
(18:31):
product which is instantbrownies.
And so when you buy thisproduct, it comes in a box and
on the front of the box there isalways a photo of a very
attractive set of browniesalways but when you open the box
, there is never a brownie.
There are no brownies.
Inside the box with the pictureof the brownie, there's a bag
(18:51):
of powder and then on the backthere's a set of steps that you
have to follow to make thatpowder into a brownie.
I know it's shocking, butyou're just gonna have.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
I know people are now going to go outside, go to a
supermarket and see if they canfind it.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Right.
I hope that sarcasm is allowedon this program, of course I
hope people can tell so we keepselling the recipe instead of
selling the brownie.
So a recipe is paid familyleave or universal paid family
leave.
A brownie is you're there thefirst time, your newborn smiles.
(19:28):
A recipe is carbon offsets thatallow trading that enables a.
You know like I can't evenfinish the rest of the sentence.
The brownie is.
The water in your kid's cup issafe and healthy to drink.
The recipe is ending subsidiesto large agricultural producers
(19:49):
and putting you knowrestrictions on emissions such
that there are smaller familyfarms incentivized to create.
Look like I get you know.
On and on and on.
All of that is recipe Brownieis.
Your tomato tastes like one,not like a photo of one.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Which is.
We're very bad at selling that,I think Absolutely.
I mean, everyone is, butspecifically in food and egg.
It's interesting because it'sso not easy, but it's such an
emotional subject, completely.
We do three, four, fivewhenever.
How many times you snack a day?
(20:29):
And we all know that fooddoesn't taste anymore as it used
to taste.
There's a very gut feeling,feeling literally um piece to it
and somehow we don't seem tocut through that and understand
or not understand, but get thatnotion of like a tomato doesn't
taste like a picture and, by theway, much healthier for you,
(20:50):
much healthier for your children, etc.
Like there's such a strongpiece there and and story wise,
we just haven't been.
Or communication wise, we justhaven't been.
Or communication-wise, we justhaven't been.
Doubled.
We say food is medicine andnutrient density, which is a
horrible term, but it means yeah, the tomato was grown, and not
all tomatoes are the same.
It really depends how they'regrown and how many you have to
eat to get to the same level ofphytonutrients or get the same
(21:12):
level of health.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Yeah, and what I would say is that in large part,
that comes out of a broaderphenomenon which I often
shorthand as what you fight, youfeed.
Sorry, I did not realize howmany food metaphors are inside.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
There's so many you can see like scratching the
surface going like there's somany.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
My main area of study is in metaphor, so when I say
what you fight you feed, I swearthat I use that expression in
other podcasts too.
It's not just because we'reliterally talking about food,
but anyway it applies double.
So here is a like factoid thatI like to use to illustrate what
I mean I used to.
(21:55):
We lived in Australia and Iwork in Australia a lot.
It's one of the places thatI've done many different kinds
of campaigns, both electoral,but then also issue campaigns
largely around people seekingasylum but other issues,
including climate, and there isa fact that just drives the
(22:16):
environmentalist community inAustralia bonkers.
We have a similar phenomenon inthe US, which is that when
Australians are asked whatpercentage of the workforce is
in coal, like works in coal, thereal answer and please don't
quote me on this because I'm notlooking at the literal number,
but it's minuscule it's like0.02%, it's something very small
(22:37):
and Australians routinely guessit's something I think the
average guess it averages out to9%, which is, like many, many
sort of times greater.
And the same is true in theUnited States.
If you ask sort of the averageAmerican, hey, you know, what
percentage of jobs do you thinkare in oil and gas it's their
(22:59):
guess is just like wildly offwhat it actually is, and you can
imagine why this drives theenvironmental community just
absolutely bonkers.
And what I say to them is yeah,what you fight you feed.
You talk about coal all day long.
All you do is talk about howhorrific coal is, and it is, but
(23:24):
all of that airtime that youare talking about coal and how
bad coal is and coal is so badand coal is so bad.
And can you believe coal andcoal is doing this and coal is
doing that?
Do you get where I'm going?
Instead of saying, a cleanenergy future is ours for the
taking and anyone who saysdifferently is lining their
pockets with poisoning yourlungs.
(23:46):
All of the time that we spendbeing like big ag is evil, big
ag is growing.
Big ag is huge.
Big ag is poisoning us.
Big ag is this?
Big ag?
Is that big ag?
Is this?
Industrial agriculture,pesticides, this thing, this
corporation, monsanto?
Whatever is time that you arenot spending?
(24:06):
actually talking, yeah, sayingactually, this is precisely what
we could have.
And these people are the oneswho are deliberately peddling
lies about what is possible,because they want to keep
poisoning you.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
How big of a switch have you noticed in other
sectors or in other issue areas,as you mentioned, that mental
switch to go to effectivecommunication, like fact-based,
not fact-based, like actuallyresearch-based, like what works
and what doesn't Like.
How big of a mental, howdifficult is it for just asking
for friends in the Food and Eggsspace to start actually seeing
(24:48):
the things you mentioned and notget stay stuck in the way we
currently communicate?
Speaker 1 (24:58):
stay stuck in the way we currently communicate.
It's like learning to writewith your non-dominant hand.
So I'm right-handed, I don'tknow what you are, but you're
left-handed, so I can write withmy left hand.
You can write with your righthand.
It's cumbersome, it'suncomfortable.
My handwriting looks terribleif I use the other hand.
(25:18):
It takes me longer.
It's cumbersome, it'suncomfortable.
My handwriting looks terribleIf I use the other hand.
It takes me longer.
It's annoying.
Why would I?
I could just write with myright hand, like why would I
stick a pen in my left hand?
That's why.
And so what happens is that weare habituated into dominant
forms of communication and justbecause some person shows us,
(25:39):
even if we sort of believe them,which in many cases, we don't
want to believe them.
And the reason we don't want tobelieve them is because we
would have to come to recognizesome level of our own complicity
in the problem that we'retrying to solve, because we have
been communicating with peoplein a way that I would argue is
(26:01):
fundamentally unprogressive.
We have been yelling at people,we have been scolding people,
we have been scaring people, wehave been trying to use all
sorts of levers that actually,over time, the research shows,
make people more conservative.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
And that's a painful realization.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
It's not great, like no, I get it.
And I see these other campaignsand I see why they've won and I
see why talking about harms andhorrors is actually not
activating people.
And I accept and this is wherea lot of challenge comes that
(26:51):
just telling people the truth.
If we were to just tell peoplethe truth, just tell them the
facts.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
If we get more facts, we'll be there.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Is what is happening, and that is our responsibility.
Our responsibility is toprovide people with accurate,
comprehensive information aboutwhat is occurring.
And my response back to that isare you a science teacher?
It is somebody's responsibility, but if your job is not to be a
(27:20):
science teacher, if your job isactually to change hearts and
minds and to alter what peopleare willing to do, not just
purely in their own consumerbehavior, but more broadly in
seizing power, because these areall, ultimately, questions of
who has power that is what itall comes down to in every
(27:44):
single one of these issues, andso, even if people are sort of
like past all that and they'relike, yes, I understand, I need
to do it in this other way.
You know, to be fair to humanbeings, myself included,
habituated behavior is very,very hard to overcome, and so it
takes a very deliberatepractice, because it's not just
(28:06):
a matter of oh, you gave me amessaging guide.
You said embrace this, replacethis, do say this, don't say
that.
This paragraph, not thatparagraph, this word not that
word.
It also comes into play withthe images that you use, the
campaigns that you run and, mostimportantly, actually having a
(28:30):
theory of change, because a lotof where all of this breaks down
as well is that we put themessaging cart before the horse,
and sometimes we put going tomake a TikTok, or we're going to
get 10,000 new followers onBlue Sky, or we're going to do a
(29:01):
podcast, or we're going to do apress conference, or we're
going to launch a balloon intoyou know, whatever.
These are all forms ofengagement and any one of them
could be fantastic.
They could be the best ideaanyone ever had.
But that is oftentimes wherepeople begin, or, if not, that
(29:25):
they begin with like a veryclever message that they've come
up with A pun, that they'vecreated Something that is, you
know, alliterative.
I love alliteration, so I'mvery guilty of being into
alliteration, but what theydon't do is have a goal first,
because your goal is whatdefines your target audience,
(29:49):
which is what ought to defineyour message, which is what
ought to define your engagement.
And, if I may, let me give youa super concrete example.
There are many, but one reallysort of instructive one.
This is from a while back.
Years and years ago, the TexasHighway Patrol in the United
States was noticing a lot oflitter on the side of the road,
(30:11):
and at the time this was the 90s, there was a prevailing
anti-litter campaign, which wasthis cute little owl and it was
give a hoot, don't pollute.
And the owl sang a little song.
And so the Texas HighwayDepartment did a study to try to
figure out where is this littercoming from, and it turned out
that it was people who weredriving long haul trucks, those
really huge trucks that go agreat distance, those really
(30:34):
huge trucks that go a greatdistance, and they were working
so many hours that they didn'thave time to actually stop and
eat their lunch.
Because the United States,essentially, if you're a
corporation, you can make peopledo whatever you want, including
have to, like, pee into abottle, because this is, as you
know, the greatest country onearth.
And if people can't hearsarcasm in that, god forbid,
because that's what that is.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
She's doing air quotes for the people that are
looking at us air quotes as well, just to add to it.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Thank you, just you know.
So people understand exactlywhere I'm coming from.
So these long haul truckerswould eat their lunch in the
truck and then throw the paperout the window.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
And the question is do.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
we think that Hootie the owl with his cute little
give a hoot, don't pollute, wasthe right message for a long
haul trucker in Texas, and thatis where the Texas Highway
Patrol came up with the don'tmess with Texas, which, for
those of you who know anythingabout the US, and about Texas in
particular, know that that hasbecome so ubiquitous that it's
(31:34):
basically a Texas slogan, but itactually began as an
anti-litter campaign.
In particular, know that thathas become so ubiquitous that
it's basically a Texas slogan,but it actually began as an
anti-litter campaign.
That's a perfect example of amatch between what you're trying
to get done, who you know theaudience to be and how you
select the message.
I can give you example uponexample in which we do match and
in example after example wherewe don't match, and so a lot of
(32:00):
this just comes down to theproblems that we confront,
especially in the climate,environment, et cetera.
Space are so massive andoverwhelming that it feels
extraordinarily difficult tocome up with a theory of change.
What are you actually trying toget people to believe?
And if they believed it, whatare you trying to get them to do
(32:21):
?
And then you work from there tofigure out oh, that means my
audience is long-haul truckdrivers in texas and it worked.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
By the way.
I mean, I'm asking the obviousquestion, but but did it reduce
the litter?
Speaker 1 (32:35):
It did, it did yes.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
And so really clear, and I think we are so often
guilty of that echo chamberpiece as well.
But now in the food movementand in the ag movement, we need
to get out of that, obviouslybecause it is about power, it's
about legislation, it's aboutcompanies doing all kinds of
stuff that is actually legal andillegal at the same time as
(32:57):
well, and how do we hold themaccountable?
And we have amazing farmersdoing amazing things, but
they're sort of against all oddsand we cannot expect and
there's some great actuallythere's some great work being
done, specifically by Peter Bickand others on like the
psychology of farmers intransition, like why do the
neighbors change or not if theyhave a successful neighbor next
(33:19):
to them?
And it's mind-bogglinglyinteresting to see why they even
they see across the fencehealthier cows way, healthier
grass house in order not losingmoney actually being successful.
And then would they ask theneighbor for help or not, or
even ask what are you doingdifferently?
Because across their fence andyou couldn't argue, of course,
that the rain is differentbecause you are literally
(33:40):
sharing only a fence line.
That's the only difference.
Management has to be the onlydifference.
And still, people have livednext to each other for 20, 30
years and never asked.
Well, one is clearly degradedand the other one is clearly not
.
But we cannot expect I mean,those are the pioneers we cannot
expect the next cohort offarmers or next cohort of
consumers to have so much mentalspace or care enough, or care
(34:02):
not enough about what othersthink, to actually start
transitioning.
You'll be laughed at in thevillage.
Your fields are messy.
We've heard stories of childrennot being invited anymore for
soccer practice because somebodywent organic.
Things like that, like notkidding.
So there's a lot of culturalpressure, let's say, to keep
things the same, becausebasically, by saying something
(34:23):
could be different, you'resaying their parents were wrong.
In that sense, the grandparents, et cetera, et cetera.
It's very strong and they'reoften still involved in the farm
.
So that's extra tricky.
But now we get to a point.
Okay, we have some greatpioneers.
In many contexts you can findamazing farmers.
What's that group around them?
Or what's the next group andthe next group that are
somewhere else on the curve anddefinitely not crazy enough to
(34:43):
do it Probably rightfully so.
And that messaging has to becompletely different and has to
be really understood.
Okay, what's the second, third,fourth cohort groups that are
going to ditch certain chemicalsand how do we hold their hand
and make sure they cantransition?
I have to support that, etcetera to even consider doing
things differently in a sectorwhere you have maybe 40 harvests
(35:05):
it's not that you have like youcan iterate constantly no, you
try something, you see if itworks next year.
So that's a but it's a hugelypsychology piece there that we
have, I think I'm safe to say,completely missed until now.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
I have suggestions on that.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Please do, because it was a long rant without a
question.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
No, not at all.
I'll just invent a question outof it.
Media 101 is that you just havethe things you want to say and
it doesn't matter what theinterviewer says.
The interviewer is not youraudience, the audience is the
audience, and so you should knowwhat you want to say and you
should twist what theinterviewer is saying.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Thank you for the question and I'm going to ask.
I'm going to give my answer.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Yeah, Anyway, that's just me making a meta commentary
on how to message.
So the first thing is it's justso fascinating that the
psychological process that youdescribed is exactly the same
psychological process I justdescribed with adoption of new
messaging.
Like the same thing isoccurring.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
That's why I brought it up.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Yeah, yeah.
So humans are funny creatures,even when we know better, or we
ought to know better, like wedon't necessarily change for all
sorts of reasons that havetheir roots in evolution, like
it's not completely just sort ofnuts.
Humans are social creatures.
So this is me now moving intosolution space.
(36:31):
So, regardless of how muchright-wing discourse we've all
been subjected to in our variousgeographies, that you know the
only thing that matters is theindividual, or the individual
plus the family, and you're onyour own and you need to
maximize things for yourself.
And, in the US context, pullyourself up by your bootstraps,
you know, unless your dad canjust hand you a golden toilet,
(36:53):
or you can be from apartheidSouth Africa and, you know, make
money off of destroying thenative African population.
But, yeah, bootstraps, right.
So basically, people do thething they think people like
them do.
This is a concept in psychologythat is known as social proof.
This is a concept in psychologythat is known as social proof,
(37:35):
and so every time we havemessaging that says, in the
voting context, for example,young people are really not
turning out to vote andparticipation among Latinos is,
you know, historically low inmidterm elections and black
people turned out at lower ratesthis last election or whatever.
You're actually increasing the.
You're giving social permissionfor people not to vote because
you're saying your category of aperson, however you
self-identify does not engage inthis behavior.
Another example speaking aboutvaccine hesitancy, actually
increased vaccine hesitancyYou're giving license to
(37:56):
behavior that you're attemptingto eliminate by saying this is a
crisis.
People are not doing this.
People are not gettingvaccinated, people are not
converting to organicagriculture.
Not enough people are doingthis.
People are not doing this.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
And guess what People will probably not do it?
Speaker 1 (38:14):
You're not just saying you're inviting people
not to do it.
You're saying the dominant wayto live in society is this
antiquated, really dangerous,perverse way.
But you're saying that's whatmost people do.
And the fact is, as socialcreatures, humans try to fit in,
(38:35):
even when they're beingcountercultural.
There's a reason why in highschool all the goth kids look
identical, right?
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Which is always so ironic yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
In order to be countercultural.
You're not going to do that byyourself.
That's dangerous.
You're going to go against thedominant mainstream, but only if
you can create your ownsub-community.
So what does that mean in termsof messaging and this kind of
agriculture?
It means shifting away from toofew people are doing this.
Not enough people are doingthis.
(39:06):
A handful of people are doingthis almost nobody's doing this
to saying I'll.
I'll take the Netherlands as myexample.
Across the Netherlands, likenever before, people are
embracing new ways of growingfood, eating food, coming
together and having a deliciousfuture.
Every year it grows more andmore the people who are caring
(39:31):
for themselves, putting food onthe table and being home in time
to eat it.
Because, even if it's notenough, it is still true that it
is increasing.
Like because I don't advocateever for lying.
There's no lying in any of mymessages.
Don't do that.
But it is both the case thatnot enough people are doing this
(39:51):
and most people are stayingstubbornly stuck in bad patterns
, but it is also the case thatit is increasing year by year.
That is a true statement, andso when we talk about it, as
more and more people are doingthis, more and more people are
on this train.
You can get on board or you canbe the last one explaining to
your grandchild why you got leftbehind.
(40:14):
And in a lot of ways, marriageequality once again is really
instructive.
There was a shift away from.
This is a very controversialissue and people are abusing us
and you know they hate us andthey're against us and they
don't want this and we need tohave this right to protect
ourselves, because most ofsociety is against us to
essentially saying we're gettingmarried people.
(40:37):
You can either get on board oryou can try to explain to your
grandchild why you had an issuewith this, but you're going to
look the fool.
I wouldn't add the look thefool part.
But yeah, it's a fake.
It till you make it kind ofthing.
You say this is what themajority of people are doing At
a sort of engagement level.
You do things like competitionsamong neighbors for who can use
(41:03):
the least water in a month andyou have municipalities reward
that.
You do competitions for sort ofwho can use the least
fertilizer in a month orwhatever.
I don't know enough about thepracticalities of it and you
actually sort of make it a gamewhere people can win and show
(41:24):
other people that they'rewinning.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
And so I think the fake it until you make it not
necessarily, of course, againfocusing on the facts and really
focusing on what's moving,what's happening, is something
that obviously, coming backagain to it, doesn't really come
natural because we're so deepin the red.
Let's say, in all these issuesNot all, I mean many things are
(41:51):
actually moving forward, like weoften forget, but it's very
easy to get in the I meanbecause of media get in that
spiral to starting.
Actually there are many morepeople showing up on this and
the farms are growing left andright, and actually one of the
main joys I've seen in thisspace specifically, I've been
following now for the last 15years is the influx of people
(42:11):
and the influx of quality peoplethat have experience elsewhere,
that have built companies, thathave built farms, funds etc.
That somewhere I still haven'tfigured out why, but get bitten
by the soil bug, let's say,either through personal health,
through family health, throughclimate which was why I got into
it through biodiversity,whatever inequality, whatever
the angle is, it doesn't reallymatter and then they fall down
the rabbit hole and figure outFudanag is everywhere, not only
(42:34):
in our language, but literallyconnected everywhere.
If you care about inequality,health, et cetera.
You're going to end up at Soilat some point.
So, seeing that influx of talentthat wasn't there before, like
nobody cared I mean not nobody.
Very few people cared 15 yearsago.
If I mentioned Soil toinvestors they were like, okay,
yeah, let's talk about greenmobility or something like that.
Now it's like a topic, it's athing.
Doesn't make it any easier, butat least we are with way more
(42:57):
and and it becomes uh, by almostself-fulfilling prophecy, that
this is an important thing andmore farmers feel uh comfortable
talking about soil andcomfortable ditching certain
things and not doing certainthings and and selling a plow
god forbid, that used to be thestatus symbol of every farmer,
arable farmer, and so it's.
It's interesting how thatreinforces it still feels we're
(43:18):
really at and selling a plow Godforbid.
That used to be the statussymbol of every farmer, arable,
farmer, and so it's interestinghow that reinforces it still
feels we're really at thebeginning, like it still feels
like we're so small compared tobut it definitely way bigger
than 10, 15 years ago.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
Yeah, I mean, I think another staple of what we see
in climate discourse that isproblematic and could change is,
ironically, all of the oil andgas corporations.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
All of their messaging, all of their
advertising is focused on thefuture true a better future the
moment you talked about oil gasand I started thinking about all
the ad for that.
Actually, it's's all shiny,it's all green.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
Yeah, powering your future, bringing the future to
light, bringing the future tolife, moving toward a better
future, like.
All of these are slogans thatyou know.
Exxon, bp, texaco, et ceterahave like, if not those literal
words, some permutations, sothey sort of live in this very
we're powering your future,we're moving you into this
(44:17):
future.
And when you do languageanalysis of conservation, of
sort of environmental discourse,it's rooted ba-dum-bum in the
past.
Sometimes it's about thepresent.
Very rarely is it about thefuture, and campaigns, largely
(44:50):
speaking, are a battle over whodefiners of the future rather
than only battling the presentor having recriminations about
the past.
Then we couldn't possibly win.
Now I want to be clear.
Going back to my diatribe aboutthe passive voice, I am not
(45:11):
arguing that we make believethat everything is fine.
I said before there's no lyingin my messages.
I don't believe in lying.
Everything is not fine.
What it means is that what wehave found is that an effective
message follows a set order,which is values, villain, vision
.
So you do call out the problem.
(45:32):
Don't mistake me.
It's just not your openingsalvo.
Your hello to new people is nothello nice to meet you at this
party.
I have a lot of problems Wouldyou like to hear about them.
Because if you start like that,most people are going to wander
to the hors d'oeuvre table andbe like don't talk to that
person.
Like you don't want to talk tothat person.
You'll thank me later forwarning you.
(45:56):
So instead, what we say issomething like no matter what we
look like, where we come fromor where we live, most of us
know that our most cherishedmoments involve nurturing the
ones we love.
That's the opening value thateveryone's like.
Yeah, of course, like that'svery common.
(46:17):
There is no culture in whichfood is not like the mainstay
and the connection, as you said,the social cohesion, the love.
But today, this is where we getinto the villain in the active
voice.
A handful of giant agcorporations and the politicians
they've paid for want to peddlelies to us about the food that
(46:44):
we can eat and use to ensure ourfamilies' health and well-being
and well-being.
They know that if they canscare us that, we will look the
other way while they poison ourair and water and pick our
pockets, stealing the wealththat our work creates.
A healthy, delicious future isours for the taking.
(47:10):
We can have tomatoes that tastelike one, not like a magazine
photo when and if we kick themto the curb and we produce
healthy, locally made food ourway for our families.
Now that needs to be copyeditedand whatever, but that's values
(47:31):
, will and vision.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
And interestingly enough and I'm going to wrap up
because I know I need to go it'show many of these farmers speak
.
The most advanced ones are verytuned to this, probably because
they had a lot of people ontours and they can see what
works.
But they don't have the stageyet.
We're working on that Top 50farmers and others.
Definitely the next heroes willbe people that take care of the
(47:54):
land, because they're takingall the risks and we need them
to produce food, fiber and oilsin a way that nurtures all of us
and not just a few pockets oflarge companies.
But it's interesting during youwere talking, I've heard a
number of farmers talk like that.
But the problem is for theaudience is relatively small,
but that means there's a lot ofoptions to start messaging
(48:16):
differently.
We don't have to look very far,because it's such a personal
connection most people have withfood.
I mean, there's some peoplethat just drink food out of a
bottle and think that as a meal,but that's not the target group
.
Let's be very clear here that'snot the ones we're going to
target for.
So I want to thank you so much.
I want to wrap up and thank youfor the work you do.
(48:36):
Obviously in all theprogressive areas.
None of them is more importantthan others, but hopefully
you'll find time and someinteresting clients in the
future as well around Food andAg, because we desperately need
more of this.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
Thank you for having me.
No matter what we look like, where we come from or
where we live.
Most of us know that our mostcherished moments involve
nurturing the ones we love.
Want to peddle lies to us aboutthe food that we can eat and
use to ensure our families'health and well-being.
(00:31):
They know that if they canscare us that we will look the
other way while they poison ourair and water and pick our
pockets, stealing the wealththat our work creates.
Pick our pockets, stealing thewealth that our work creates.
A healthy, delicious future isours for the taking.
We can have tomatoes that tastelike one, not like a magazine
(00:56):
photo.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
When and if we kick them to the curb and we produce
healthy, locally made food ourway for our families.
This is the Investing inRegenerative Agriculture and
Food podcast, where we learnmore on how to put money to work
to regenerate soil, people,local communities and ecosystems
, while making an appropriateand fair return.
Welcome to another episodetoday with the founder of ASO, a
progressive politicalcommunication bureau with
(01:28):
slogans like don't take thetemperature but change it.
And the great message doesn'tsay what's already popular, but
a great message makes popularwhat needs to be said.
Welcome, annette.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
And we have a lot to discuss.
I really I've reached outbecause I really enjoyed.
I will see if I can put a link,probably behind the paywall,
but a link to an article I'vereached out because I really
enjoyed.
I will see if I can put a linkit's probably behind the paywall
, but a link to an article Iread on your work in the
Correspondent, which is, let'ssay, a news site in the
Netherlands but paid for by theusers, not by advertisements and
all of those things, whichmeans you get some interesting
(01:59):
insights or some interestinglet's say not super urgent news.
I will see if I can create somekind of share link with that.
Anyway, it was absolutelyfascinating to see and to read
in this case and we're going tolisten to that as well the power
of storytelling, the power ofcommunications and the power of
messaging.
But I want to start with apersonal question we always like
(02:19):
to ask.
In this case, of course, it'snot necessarily focused on soil
and ag but what made you spendmost of your waking hours and
for sure you've told this story650,000 times but spend most of
your waking hours focusing oncommunication and progressive
communication, or, let's say,communication that works, which
is not always the same thing.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Yeah, so I often tell people that there is so, so, so
much outside of our control.
We cannot control what ouropposition says.
We cannot control how muchendless money they are able to
spend to peddle their poisonousideas.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
They always seem to have more than what we have at
our disposal for communication.
A little bit more, just a tinybit more.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
um, we can't control you know the fact that in many
of our countries the media isbought and paid for and
complicit in at best both sidesin debates, that in which, in
fact, there is one side, theside of humanity, uh, and I
guess the other side is the sideof the billionaires.
So in that case there's bothsides, but as far as what is
(03:25):
actually accurate and correctand actionable, there's one side
.
So we can't control any of that.
But what we can control one ofthe few, few, few things that we
can control is the words thatcome out of our mouth and out of
our fingers if we are typingthem.
And so I focus on communicationbecause, first of all, that's
(03:50):
just my sort of educational andprofessional background is in
looking at a field calledcognitive linguistics and
applying it to try to understandwhy certain messages resonate
where others don't.
But the reason that I was drawnto that, besides just coming
from a multilingual householdspeaking multiple languages
myself, being interested in theliteral act of communication
(04:14):
that is, conveying ideas through, you know, these percussive
sounds that we produce with ourvocal folds, but also with our
fingers if it's the written wordis because that's a thing
that's under our power.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
And some examples just for people that don't know
your work, let's say, orsomething that led you into the
progressive world, like wherethey can see things going very,
very wrong.
Or just not hitting, let's say,because we produce an immense
amount of words, immense amountof words, written audio, and
(04:53):
most of it seems to just not hithome or not hit a nerve or not
get to action, even though we'vebeen shouting about climate
change for I don't know how long.
Biodiversity loss, like thelist goes on and on and on and
we'll get to food and egg, likewhat can we learn from, let's
say, what works?
But remember one of your firstencounters to figure out, okay,
what doesn't work and what works, like where was that switch
(05:15):
between, at the end, just otherletters or just between brackets
, like another way of framing,or even using just another word
got a completely differentreaction or even using just
another word, got a completelydifferent reaction.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Sure, I mean, there are so many that go flooding
into my brain.
I can recall so many timesbefore I did sort of more
deliberate consideration andstudy and I spend most of my
time now as a researcher doingbig empirical experiments around
this message versus thatmessage, and what does that mean
and how are people receiving it, and so on.
But when I was a little babycomms person as any baby comms
(05:55):
or non-baby comms person willtell you if they're telling you
the truth, when you look aroundat a lot of the ways that
progressive communication isconstructed, it's just off the
gut, it's just off instinct andthat's not a shock, right?
We are all communicators.
We all communicate, whether itis with gesture, whether it is
(06:18):
with voice, whether it is withwriting, whether it is with you
know pantomime, with facialexpressions, whatever, like
we're all communicating all thetime, and so it's often
difficult for people tounderstand that you can make
deliberate choices around oneword or another.
So, to get to a concreteexample, I don't.
This is far from the first one,it's just one that really
(06:40):
stands out.
That really stands out.
I live in California and in 2008, the same election with the
historic, you know, barack Obamacoming into the White House.
A really incredible moment forthis country in multiple,
multiple dimensions.
But also the year thatCalifornia famously progressive
(07:02):
California, I say that inquotations barred marriage
equality, so passed somethingcalled the Proposition 8, which
was a ballot initiative.
So it was voted on by popularreferendum to ban same-sex
marriage.
Because prior to that, thenmayor of San Francisco, now
governor Gavin Newsom, had beensort of rogue marrying people at
(07:25):
the San Francisco now governorGavin Newsom had been sort of
rogue marrying people at the SanFrancisco Capitol.
And in the lead up to that Prop8 loss, on the basis of the way
that research normally gets donewhich I have a lot of pun
intended on this podcast beefwith it was thought to be the
best messaging and the bestargument to give very practical
(07:49):
discourse.
So married filing jointlyhospital visitation rights, the
right to marry.
This is harming us and this isinterfering with our rights,
because the idea was and thetesting showed that if you
talked about love andrelationships, then people who
were in the opposition kind ofgot sketched out because you
(08:11):
children think of the children,which is, you know, a common
refrain in this kind of arenathe campaign to try to defeat
(08:41):
Prop 8 was had no children in itand had no queer people in it.
It was all like very nicestraight white couples being
like.
You know, I think it'simportant that everyone have the
same rights and you know, ifpeople want to be married, they
should be able to file jointlyon their taxes and visit each
(09:02):
other in the hospital, and sothat was the message that was
sort of blandly inoffensive tothe greatest number of people in
the sample, but it was also themessage that no one in their
right mind would ever repeat,because no one has ever stood in
line at a grocery store andsaid you know, I was just
thinking the other day of myjoint filer and how, when we do
(09:24):
our taxes together, becausethat's not how normal people
conceive of romanticrelationships.
And so when, after that reallyterrible loss, there was a lot
of really really smart researchand campaigning done by a lot of
really smart people, there wasa shift away from the right to
(09:45):
marry to the freedom to marry, ashift away from gay marriage to
marriage equality.
Because as soon as you call itgay marriage, when you take a
noun that is normally naked andyou stick a qualifier on it,
what you're doing linguisticallyis creating a new category.
In essence, what you'reconveying to people tacitly is
(10:06):
well, there's regular marriagewhich presumably is the kind
that I'm in with a man.
And then there's gay marriage,which is this other kind of
marriage, and so that's alreadysort of setting it apart,
whereas marriage equality is avalues-based argument and a
(10:27):
shift away from that sort ofsuper practical hospital
visitation rights, taxes, tolove is love and love makes a
family.
And having ads that shockeractually had gay and lesbian
people in them and showed kidsand was like, yeah, no, we are
doing this because we want tohave families.
We're not going to lie to youand hide that from you because
(10:47):
there's nothing nefarious goingon here.
So that is a long example tosort of walk through the old
thinking and why it didn't workand the new thinking in a case
study that I think all of us arefamiliar with.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
And then it started to work Like it started to hit
all of us are familiar with.
And then it started to workLike it started to hit.
It started to actually, afterthat terrible loss, it started
to move people and move votesacross the US, basically.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Yeah, across the US and outside the US.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
And so when we bring that to other sectors, I don't
know.
I mean, you've done a lot inthe political side of things on
migrants in Europe as well, buton food and agriculture, have
you done any work on that side?
Or, if you haven't, we're goingto apply some of it to, let's
say, the sector we spend most ofour time on.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Yeah.
So what I would say is I'vefrom Wisconsin, which is a big
dairy state, lots and lots andlots of cows, lots and lots and
lots of milk A state wheremargarine was illegal up until
the 1980s because that is howmuch you know butter dominated.
That is one of my favoriteWisconsin fun facts, the fact
that margarine was actuallyillegal.
So I would say I've done sortof adjacent things.
(12:26):
And then I am aware of newercampaigns, for example in Brazil
around industrial agriculturewith the Amazon rainforest.
More recently in Spain aroundkind of locavore growing locally
things.
So what I would say is thatfirst of all, there is a set of
(12:47):
cardinal sins that exist acrossprogressive messaging, and I
often tell people that I couldspend every minute of every day
dealing with what I'm about todescribe in every kind of
progressive issue area and befully employed for the rest of
my life in the most boring waypossible, which I would prefer
not to be doing, just repeatingstuff.
(13:09):
So the first is the tendency tobegin every message with one of
three things, which is boy, haveI got a problem for you?
This is the Titanic, would youlike to buy a ticket?
And we're the losing team.
We lose a lot, we lost recently, so you should join us.
Those are our three favoritethings to say in different
(13:32):
permutations the Titanic,because they know how that movie
ends and they're not excitedabout hopping aboard.
Most people got 99 problems andthey don't want yours.
They are not out shopping forsomething else to be upset about
(13:53):
.
And then most people don't wantto join the losing team.
I think Hollywood, the underdogstory like, has sucked us all
in, and the reason why there isa tendency among advocates and
activists who formulate thismessaging again instinctively
off the cuff is that foractivists by which I mean
(14:14):
ideologically aligned with yourposition and already mobilized,
already doing stuff, that kindof a person, which is a very
small segment of any populationthey love new problems.
Boy, have I got a problem foryou?
Is their love language.
(14:35):
And they're like a new problem,I'm so excited.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
And we're losing, by the way.
So, yeah, let's, let's get onthat, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Like, oh also, this is sort of the righteous fight
and and I will be in this fightno, with some attention to your
issue.
But like, they're certainly notdonating, they're not marching,
(15:12):
they're not protesting, they'renot telling other people about
this, they're not ready tochange their consumptive
behavior, or maybe they areready to change their
consumptive behavior, but that'sabout it.
They're not sort of in powerbuilding and in kind of direct
action.
So for the base, even theprogressive base, they're not
(15:33):
attracted to we're losers.
This is the Titanic.
And also here's a new problem,because they've got life to deal
with, they got things going onand they're not going to sign up
to a lost cause.
So that is one sort of cardinalsin that, like I don't even need
(15:54):
to look across the landscape ofmessaging on Big Ag and so on,
I'm just going out on a limb andsaying that's happening because
I've never seen it nothappening.
I'm just going out on a limband saying that's happening
because I've never seen it nothappening.
The next cardinal sin ispretending like we don't know
where problems come from.
So there is a tendency to writeeverything in what is
(16:16):
technically called in agentiveconstructions.
It's loosely the passive voice,even if it's not sort of like
fits, the exact grammaticaldefinition of the passive voice,
even if it's not sort of likefits, the exact grammatical
definition of the passive voice.
This is when we say things likeharms are increasing, farmland
is lost, you know, naturalrivers are being polluted.
(16:37):
In other issue areas, wages arefalling.
The gap between rich and pooris growing.
Uh, as organizations in mycountry like to say, democracy
is eroding because apparentlydemocracy is a mountain that has
been standing outside for toolong and it just keeps raining.
It's not actually the fact thatthere is a fascist power grab
(16:59):
occurring and literal whitenationalists who are now
deploying the military againstpeople who have literally
weaponized government againstthe American population.
All of this is just sort ofhappening in the ether.
(17:20):
When we don't make clear at theoutset that a problem is
person-made, it becomescognitively inconsistent to ask
for it to be person-fixed.
If wages are falling because, Idon't know, I guess they got
heavy, they ate too much it wasThanksgiving, I'm not sure like
they acquired additional gravityin some way, some way, then why
(17:49):
would you be asking for yourlawmaker to pass a law that says
corporations have to keep awage at a certain point?
And so those two things, andI'll add one more if it's not
too much.
The third sort of cardinal sinwhich happens over and, over and
over again, over and over andover again, is that on the left
(18:10):
we love to sell the recipe andnot the brownie.
So what I mean by that is thatwhen you go and I'm sure none of
your listeners do this, becauseyou are all so healthy and like
good at buying food made out offood, so you'll just have to
trust me that this is a thingthat exists.
You've probably not even seenit because it is not at your
like health food grocery store,but in many stores there is a
(18:31):
product which is instantbrownies.
And so when you buy thisproduct, it comes in a box and
on the front of the box there isalways a photo of a very
attractive set of browniesalways but when you open the box
, there is never a brownie.
There are no brownies.
Inside the box with the pictureof the brownie, there's a bag
(18:51):
of powder and then on the backthere's a set of steps that you
have to follow to make thatpowder into a brownie.
I know it's shocking, butyou're just gonna have.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
I know people are now going to go outside, go to a
supermarket and see if they canfind it.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Right.
I hope that sarcasm is allowedon this program, of course I
hope people can tell so we keepselling the recipe instead of
selling the brownie.
So a recipe is paid familyleave or universal paid family
leave.
A brownie is you're there thefirst time, your newborn smiles.
(19:28):
A recipe is carbon offsets thatallow trading that enables a.
You know like I can't evenfinish the rest of the sentence.
The brownie is.
The water in your kid's cup issafe and healthy to drink.
The recipe is ending subsidiesto large agricultural producers
(19:49):
and putting you knowrestrictions on emissions such
that there are smaller familyfarms incentivized to create.
Look like I get you know.
On and on and on.
All of that is recipe Brownieis.
Your tomato tastes like one,not like a photo of one.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Which is.
We're very bad at selling that,I think Absolutely.
I mean, everyone is, butspecifically in food and egg.
It's interesting because it'sso not easy, but it's such an
emotional subject, completely.
We do three, four, fivewhenever.
How many times you snack a day?
(20:29):
And we all know that fooddoesn't taste anymore as it used
to taste.
There's a very gut feeling,feeling literally um piece to it
and somehow we don't seem tocut through that and understand
or not understand, but get thatnotion of like a tomato doesn't
taste like a picture and, by theway, much healthier for you,
(20:50):
much healthier for your children, etc.
Like there's such a strongpiece there and and story wise,
we just haven't been.
Or communication wise, we justhaven't been.
Or communication-wise, we justhaven't been.
Doubled.
We say food is medicine andnutrient density, which is a
horrible term, but it means yeah, the tomato was grown, and not
all tomatoes are the same.
It really depends how they'regrown and how many you have to
eat to get to the same level ofphytonutrients or get the same
(21:12):
level of health.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Yeah, and what I would say is that in large part,
that comes out of a broaderphenomenon which I often
shorthand as what you fight, youfeed.
Sorry, I did not realize howmany food metaphors are inside.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
There's so many you can see like scratching the
surface going like there's somany.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
My main area of study is in metaphor, so when I say
what you fight you feed, I swearthat I use that expression in
other podcasts too.
It's not just because we'reliterally talking about food,
but anyway it applies double.
So here is a like factoid thatI like to use to illustrate what
I mean I used to.
(21:55):
We lived in Australia and Iwork in Australia a lot.
It's one of the places thatI've done many different kinds
of campaigns, both electoral,but then also issue campaigns
largely around people seekingasylum but other issues,
including climate, and there isa fact that just drives the
(22:16):
environmentalist community inAustralia bonkers.
We have a similar phenomenon inthe US, which is that when
Australians are asked whatpercentage of the workforce is
in coal, like works in coal, thereal answer and please don't
quote me on this because I'm notlooking at the literal number,
but it's minuscule it's like0.02%, it's something very small
(22:37):
and Australians routinely guessit's something I think the
average guess it averages out to9%, which is, like many, many
sort of times greater.
And the same is true in theUnited States.
If you ask sort of the averageAmerican, hey, you know, what
percentage of jobs do you thinkare in oil and gas it's their
(22:59):
guess is just like wildly offwhat it actually is, and you can
imagine why this drives theenvironmental community just
absolutely bonkers.
And what I say to them is yeah,what you fight you feed.
You talk about coal all day long.
All you do is talk about howhorrific coal is, and it is, but
(23:24):
all of that airtime that youare talking about coal and how
bad coal is and coal is so badand coal is so bad.
And can you believe coal andcoal is doing this and coal is
doing that?
Do you get where I'm going?
Instead of saying, a cleanenergy future is ours for the
taking and anyone who saysdifferently is lining their
pockets with poisoning yourlungs.
(23:46):
All of the time that we spendbeing like big ag is evil, big
ag is growing.
Big ag is huge.
Big ag is poisoning us.
Big ag is this?
Big ag?
Is that big ag?
Is this?
Industrial agriculture,pesticides, this thing, this
corporation, monsanto?
Whatever is time that you arenot spending?
(24:06):
actually talking, yeah, sayingactually, this is precisely what
we could have.
And these people are the oneswho are deliberately peddling
lies about what is possible,because they want to keep
poisoning you.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
How big of a switch have you noticed in other
sectors or in other issue areas,as you mentioned, that mental
switch to go to effectivecommunication, like fact-based,
not fact-based, like actuallyresearch-based, like what works
and what doesn't Like.
How big of a mental, howdifficult is it for just asking
for friends in the Food and Eggsspace to start actually seeing
(24:48):
the things you mentioned and notget stay stuck in the way we
currently communicate?
Speaker 1 (24:58):
stay stuck in the way we currently communicate.
It's like learning to writewith your non-dominant hand.
So I'm right-handed, I don'tknow what you are, but you're
left-handed, so I can write withmy left hand.
You can write with your righthand.
It's cumbersome, it'suncomfortable.
My handwriting looks terribleif I use the other hand.
(25:18):
It takes me longer.
It's cumbersome, it'suncomfortable.
My handwriting looks terribleIf I use the other hand.
It takes me longer.
It's annoying.
Why would I?
I could just write with myright hand, like why would I
stick a pen in my left hand?
That's why.
And so what happens is that weare habituated into dominant
forms of communication and justbecause some person shows us,
(25:39):
even if we sort of believe them,which in many cases, we don't
want to believe them.
And the reason we don't want tobelieve them is because we
would have to come to recognizesome level of our own complicity
in the problem that we'retrying to solve, because we have
been communicating with peoplein a way that I would argue is
(26:01):
fundamentally unprogressive.
We have been yelling at people,we have been scolding people,
we have been scaring people, wehave been trying to use all
sorts of levers that actually,over time, the research shows,
make people more conservative.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
And that's a painful realization.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
It's not great, like no, I get it.
And I see these other campaignsand I see why they've won and I
see why talking about harms andhorrors is actually not
activating people.
And I accept and this is wherea lot of challenge comes that
(26:51):
just telling people the truth.
If we were to just tell peoplethe truth, just tell them the
facts.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
If we get more facts, we'll be there.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Is what is happening, and that is our responsibility.
Our responsibility is toprovide people with accurate,
comprehensive information aboutwhat is occurring.
And my response back to that isare you a science teacher?
It is somebody's responsibility, but if your job is not to be a
(27:20):
science teacher, if your job isactually to change hearts and
minds and to alter what peopleare willing to do, not just
purely in their own consumerbehavior, but more broadly in
seizing power, because these areall, ultimately, questions of
who has power that is what itall comes down to in every
(27:44):
single one of these issues, andso, even if people are sort of
like past all that and they'relike, yes, I understand, I need
to do it in this other way.
You know, to be fair to humanbeings, myself included,
habituated behavior is very,very hard to overcome, and so it
takes a very deliberatepractice, because it's not just
(28:06):
a matter of oh, you gave me amessaging guide.
You said embrace this, replacethis, do say this, don't say
that.
This paragraph, not thatparagraph, this word not that
word.
It also comes into play withthe images that you use, the
campaigns that you run and, mostimportantly, actually having a
(28:30):
theory of change, because a lotof where all of this breaks down
as well is that we put themessaging cart before the horse,
and sometimes we put going tomake a TikTok, or we're going to
get 10,000 new followers onBlue Sky, or we're going to do a
(29:01):
podcast, or we're going to do apress conference, or we're
going to launch a balloon intoyou know, whatever.
These are all forms ofengagement and any one of them
could be fantastic.
They could be the best ideaanyone ever had.
But that is oftentimes wherepeople begin, or, if not, that
(29:25):
they begin with like a veryclever message that they've come
up with A pun, that they'vecreated Something that is, you
know, alliterative.
I love alliteration, so I'mvery guilty of being into
alliteration, but what theydon't do is have a goal first,
because your goal is whatdefines your target audience,
(29:49):
which is what ought to defineyour message, which is what
ought to define your engagement.
And, if I may, let me give youa super concrete example.
There are many, but one reallysort of instructive one.
This is from a while back.
Years and years ago, the TexasHighway Patrol in the United
States was noticing a lot oflitter on the side of the road,
(30:11):
and at the time this was the 90s, there was a prevailing
anti-litter campaign, which wasthis cute little owl and it was
give a hoot, don't pollute.
And the owl sang a little song.
And so the Texas HighwayDepartment did a study to try to
figure out where is this littercoming from, and it turned out
that it was people who weredriving long haul trucks, those
really huge trucks that go agreat distance, those really
(30:34):
huge trucks that go a greatdistance, and they were working
so many hours that they didn'thave time to actually stop and
eat their lunch.
Because the United States,essentially, if you're a
corporation, you can make peopledo whatever you want, including
have to, like, pee into abottle, because this is, as you
know, the greatest country onearth.
And if people can't hearsarcasm in that, god forbid,
because that's what that is.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
She's doing air quotes for the people that are
looking at us air quotes as well, just to add to it.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Thank you, just you know.
So people understand exactlywhere I'm coming from.
So these long haul truckerswould eat their lunch in the
truck and then throw the paperout the window.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
And the question is do.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
we think that Hootie the owl with his cute little
give a hoot, don't pollute, wasthe right message for a long
haul trucker in Texas, and thatis where the Texas Highway
Patrol came up with the don'tmess with Texas, which, for
those of you who know anythingabout the US, and about Texas in
particular, know that that hasbecome so ubiquitous that it's
(31:34):
basically a Texas slogan, but itactually began as an
anti-litter campaign.
In particular, know that thathas become so ubiquitous that
it's basically a Texas slogan,but it actually began as an
anti-litter campaign.
That's a perfect example of amatch between what you're trying
to get done, who you know theaudience to be and how you
select the message.
I can give you example uponexample in which we do match and
in example after example wherewe don't match, and so a lot of
(32:00):
this just comes down to theproblems that we confront,
especially in the climate,environment, et cetera.
Space are so massive andoverwhelming that it feels
extraordinarily difficult tocome up with a theory of change.
What are you actually trying toget people to believe?
And if they believed it, whatare you trying to get them to do
(32:21):
?
And then you work from there tofigure out oh, that means my
audience is long-haul truckdrivers in texas and it worked.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
By the way.
I mean, I'm asking the obviousquestion, but but did it reduce
the litter?
Speaker 1 (32:35):
It did, it did yes.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
And so really clear, and I think we are so often
guilty of that echo chamberpiece as well.
But now in the food movementand in the ag movement, we need
to get out of that, obviouslybecause it is about power, it's
about legislation, it's aboutcompanies doing all kinds of
stuff that is actually legal andillegal at the same time as
(32:57):
well, and how do we hold themaccountable?
And we have amazing farmersdoing amazing things, but
they're sort of against all oddsand we cannot expect and
there's some great actuallythere's some great work being
done, specifically by Peter Bickand others on like the
psychology of farmers intransition, like why do the
neighbors change or not if theyhave a successful neighbor next
(33:19):
to them?
And it's mind-bogglinglyinteresting to see why they even
they see across the fencehealthier cows way, healthier
grass house in order not losingmoney actually being successful.
And then would they ask theneighbor for help or not, or
even ask what are you doingdifferently?
Because across their fence andyou couldn't argue, of course,
that the rain is differentbecause you are literally
(33:40):
sharing only a fence line.
That's the only difference.
Management has to be the onlydifference.
And still, people have livednext to each other for 20, 30
years and never asked.
Well, one is clearly degradedand the other one is clearly not
.
But we cannot expect I mean,those are the pioneers we cannot
expect the next cohort offarmers or next cohort of
consumers to have so much mentalspace or care enough, or care
(34:02):
not enough about what othersthink, to actually start
transitioning.
You'll be laughed at in thevillage.
Your fields are messy.
We've heard stories of childrennot being invited anymore for
soccer practice because somebodywent organic.
Things like that, like notkidding.
So there's a lot of culturalpressure, let's say, to keep
things the same, becausebasically, by saying something
(34:23):
could be different, you'resaying their parents were wrong.
In that sense, the grandparents, et cetera, et cetera.
It's very strong and they'reoften still involved in the farm
.
So that's extra tricky.
But now we get to a point.
Okay, we have some greatpioneers.
In many contexts you can findamazing farmers.
What's that group around them?
Or what's the next group andthe next group that are
somewhere else on the curve anddefinitely not crazy enough to
(34:43):
do it Probably rightfully so.
And that messaging has to becompletely different and has to
be really understood.
Okay, what's the second, third,fourth cohort groups that are
going to ditch certain chemicalsand how do we hold their hand
and make sure they cantransition?
I have to support that, etcetera to even consider doing
things differently in a sectorwhere you have maybe 40 harvests
(35:05):
it's not that you have like youcan iterate constantly no, you
try something, you see if itworks next year.
So that's a but it's a hugelypsychology piece there that we
have, I think I'm safe to say,completely missed until now.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
I have suggestions on that.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Please do, because it was a long rant without a
question.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
No, not at all.
I'll just invent a question outof it.
Media 101 is that you just havethe things you want to say and
it doesn't matter what theinterviewer says.
The interviewer is not youraudience, the audience is the
audience, and so you should knowwhat you want to say and you
should twist what theinterviewer is saying.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Thank you for the question and I'm going to ask.
I'm going to give my answer.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Yeah, Anyway, that's just me making a meta commentary
on how to message.
So the first thing is it's justso fascinating that the
psychological process that youdescribed is exactly the same
psychological process I justdescribed with adoption of new
messaging.
Like the same thing isoccurring.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
That's why I brought it up.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Yeah, yeah.
So humans are funny creatures,even when we know better, or we
ought to know better, like wedon't necessarily change for all
sorts of reasons that havetheir roots in evolution, like
it's not completely just sort ofnuts.
Humans are social creatures.
So this is me now moving intosolution space.
(36:31):
So, regardless of how muchright-wing discourse we've all
been subjected to in our variousgeographies, that you know the
only thing that matters is theindividual, or the individual
plus the family, and you're onyour own and you need to
maximize things for yourself.
And, in the US context, pullyourself up by your bootstraps,
you know, unless your dad canjust hand you a golden toilet,
(36:53):
or you can be from apartheidSouth Africa and, you know, make
money off of destroying thenative African population.
But, yeah, bootstraps, right.
So basically, people do thething they think people like
them do.
This is a concept in psychologythat is known as social proof.
This is a concept in psychologythat is known as social proof,
(37:35):
and so every time we havemessaging that says, in the
voting context, for example,young people are really not
turning out to vote andparticipation among Latinos is,
you know, historically low inmidterm elections and black
people turned out at lower ratesthis last election or whatever.
You're actually increasing the.
You're giving social permissionfor people not to vote because
you're saying your category of aperson, however you
self-identify does not engage inthis behavior.
Another example speaking aboutvaccine hesitancy, actually
increased vaccine hesitancyYou're giving license to
(37:56):
behavior that you're attemptingto eliminate by saying this is a
crisis.
People are not doing this.
People are not gettingvaccinated, people are not
converting to organicagriculture.
Not enough people are doingthis.
People are not doing this.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
And guess what People will probably not do it?
Speaker 1 (38:14):
You're not just saying you're inviting people
not to do it.
You're saying the dominant wayto live in society is this
antiquated, really dangerous,perverse way.
But you're saying that's whatmost people do.
And the fact is, as socialcreatures, humans try to fit in,
(38:35):
even when they're beingcountercultural.
There's a reason why in highschool all the goth kids look
identical, right?
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Which is always so ironic yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
In order to be countercultural.
You're not going to do that byyourself.
That's dangerous.
You're going to go against thedominant mainstream, but only if
you can create your ownsub-community.
So what does that mean in termsof messaging and this kind of
agriculture?
It means shifting away from toofew people are doing this.
Not enough people are doingthis.
(39:06):
A handful of people are doingthis almost nobody's doing this
to saying I'll.
I'll take the Netherlands as myexample.
Across the Netherlands, likenever before, people are
embracing new ways of growingfood, eating food, coming
together and having a deliciousfuture.
Every year it grows more andmore the people who are caring
(39:31):
for themselves, putting food onthe table and being home in time
to eat it.
Because, even if it's notenough, it is still true that it
is increasing.
Like because I don't advocateever for lying.
There's no lying in any of mymessages.
Don't do that.
But it is both the case thatnot enough people are doing this
(39:51):
and most people are stayingstubbornly stuck in bad patterns
, but it is also the case thatit is increasing year by year.
That is a true statement, andso when we talk about it, as
more and more people are doingthis, more and more people are
on this train.
You can get on board or you canbe the last one explaining to
your grandchild why you got leftbehind.
(40:14):
And in a lot of ways, marriageequality once again is really
instructive.
There was a shift away from.
This is a very controversialissue and people are abusing us
and you know they hate us andthey're against us and they
don't want this and we need tohave this right to protect
ourselves, because most ofsociety is against us to
essentially saying we're gettingmarried people.
(40:37):
You can either get on board oryou can try to explain to your
grandchild why you had an issuewith this, but you're going to
look the fool.
I wouldn't add the look thefool part.
But yeah, it's a fake.
It till you make it kind ofthing.
You say this is what themajority of people are doing At
a sort of engagement level.
You do things like competitionsamong neighbors for who can use
(41:03):
the least water in a month andyou have municipalities reward
that.
You do competitions for sort ofwho can use the least
fertilizer in a month orwhatever.
I don't know enough about thepracticalities of it and you
actually sort of make it a gamewhere people can win and show
(41:24):
other people that they'rewinning.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
And so I think the fake it until you make it not
necessarily, of course, againfocusing on the facts and really
focusing on what's moving,what's happening, is something
that obviously, coming backagain to it, doesn't really come
natural because we're so deepin the red.
Let's say, in all these issuesNot all, I mean many things are
(41:51):
actually moving forward, like weoften forget, but it's very
easy to get in the I meanbecause of media get in that
spiral to starting.
Actually there are many morepeople showing up on this and
the farms are growing left andright, and actually one of the
main joys I've seen in thisspace specifically, I've been
following now for the last 15years is the influx of people
(42:11):
and the influx of quality peoplethat have experience elsewhere,
that have built companies, thathave built farms, funds etc.
That somewhere I still haven'tfigured out why, but get bitten
by the soil bug, let's say,either through personal health,
through family health, throughclimate which was why I got into
it through biodiversity,whatever inequality, whatever
the angle is, it doesn't reallymatter and then they fall down
the rabbit hole and figure outFudanag is everywhere, not only
(42:34):
in our language, but literallyconnected everywhere.
If you care about inequality,health, et cetera.
You're going to end up at Soilat some point.
So, seeing that influx of talentthat wasn't there before, like
nobody cared I mean not nobody.
Very few people cared 15 yearsago.
If I mentioned Soil toinvestors they were like, okay,
yeah, let's talk about greenmobility or something like that.
Now it's like a topic, it's athing.
Doesn't make it any easier, butat least we are with way more
(42:57):
and and it becomes uh, by almostself-fulfilling prophecy, that
this is an important thing andmore farmers feel uh comfortable
talking about soil andcomfortable ditching certain
things and not doing certainthings and and selling a plow
god forbid, that used to be thestatus symbol of every farmer,
arable farmer, and so it's.
It's interesting how thatreinforces it still feels we're
(43:18):
really at and selling a plow Godforbid.
That used to be the statussymbol of every farmer, arable,
farmer, and so it's interestinghow that reinforces it still
feels we're really at thebeginning, like it still feels
like we're so small compared tobut it definitely way bigger
than 10, 15 years ago.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
Yeah, I mean, I think another staple of what we see
in climate discourse that isproblematic and could change is,
ironically, all of the oil andgas corporations.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
All of their messaging, all of their
advertising is focused on thefuture true a better future the
moment you talked about oil gasand I started thinking about all
the ad for that.
Actually, it's's all shiny,it's all green.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
Yeah, powering your future, bringing the future to
light, bringing the future tolife, moving toward a better
future, like.
All of these are slogans thatyou know.
Exxon, bp, texaco, et ceterahave like, if not those literal
words, some permutations, sothey sort of live in this very
we're powering your future,we're moving you into this
(44:17):
future.
And when you do languageanalysis of conservation, of
sort of environmental discourse,it's rooted ba-dum-bum in the
past.
Sometimes it's about thepresent.
Very rarely is it about thefuture, and campaigns, largely
(44:50):
speaking, are a battle over whodefiners of the future rather
than only battling the presentor having recriminations about
the past.
Then we couldn't possibly win.
Now I want to be clear.
Going back to my diatribe aboutthe passive voice, I am not
(45:11):
arguing that we make believethat everything is fine.
I said before there's no lyingin my messages.
I don't believe in lying.
Everything is not fine.
What it means is that what wehave found is that an effective
message follows a set order,which is values, villain, vision
.
So you do call out the problem.
(45:32):
Don't mistake me.
It's just not your openingsalvo.
Your hello to new people is nothello nice to meet you at this
party.
I have a lot of problems Wouldyou like to hear about them.
Because if you start like that,most people are going to wander
to the hors d'oeuvre table andbe like don't talk to that
person.
Like you don't want to talk tothat person.
You'll thank me later forwarning you.
(45:56):
So instead, what we say issomething like no matter what we
look like, where we come fromor where we live, most of us
know that our most cherishedmoments involve nurturing the
ones we love.
That's the opening value thateveryone's like.
Yeah, of course, like that'svery common.
(46:17):
There is no culture in whichfood is not like the mainstay
and the connection, as you said,the social cohesion, the love.
But today, this is where we getinto the villain in the active
voice.
A handful of giant agcorporations and the politicians
they've paid for want to peddlelies to us about the food that
(46:44):
we can eat and use to ensure ourfamilies' health and well-being
and well-being.
They know that if they canscare us that, we will look the
other way while they poison ourair and water and pick our
pockets, stealing the wealththat our work creates.
A healthy, delicious future isours for the taking.
(47:10):
We can have tomatoes that tastelike one, not like a magazine
photo when and if we kick themto the curb and we produce
healthy, locally made food ourway for our families.
Now that needs to be copyeditedand whatever, but that's values
(47:31):
, will and vision.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
And interestingly enough and I'm going to wrap up
because I know I need to go it'show many of these farmers speak
.
The most advanced ones are verytuned to this, probably because
they had a lot of people ontours and they can see what
works.
But they don't have the stageyet.
We're working on that Top 50farmers and others.
Definitely the next heroes willbe people that take care of the
(47:54):
land, because they're takingall the risks and we need them
to produce food, fiber and oilsin a way that nurtures all of us
and not just a few pockets oflarge companies.
But it's interesting during youwere talking, I've heard a
number of farmers talk like that.
But the problem is for theaudience is relatively small,
but that means there's a lot ofoptions to start messaging
(48:16):
differently.
We don't have to look very far,because it's such a personal
connection most people have withfood.
I mean, there's some peoplethat just drink food out of a
bottle and think that as a meal,but that's not the target group
.
Let's be very clear here that'snot the ones we're going to
target for.
So I want to thank you so much.
I want to wrap up and thank youfor the work you do.
(48:36):
Obviously in all theprogressive areas.
None of them is more importantthan others, but hopefully
you'll find time and someinteresting clients in the
future as well around Food andAg, because we desperately need
more of this.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
Thank you for having me.
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