The U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance (USFRA) was well represented at the Ag Media Summit by Executive Director Randy Krotz, board member and Wisconsin pork producer Doug Wolf, and Communications Manager Lisa Cassady.

The organization had a booth at the AMS InfoExpo to talk about what’s new at USFRA and I chatted with both Doug and Lisa about some of that. For one, USFRA is taking its highly successful national Food Dialogues effort down to a more regional level with their affiliates so they can do more of them.

USFRA has identified biotechnology and antibiotic use in livestock as two major issues that they are addressing with the non-farm audience. “Those are always controversial issues,” Doug says. “We’re still going to back the science … but we’re up against some really strong emotional responses … but we sit down and debate and discuss how it works.”

Lisa highlighted some changes to the USFRA fooddialogues.com website, one of which helps to address some of those hot-button issues. “We have a really unique section of our website called FoodSource,” Lisa says. “There’s infographics and point-of-view documents telling (consumers) accurate information about agriculture.” Lisa adds that they have also incorporated some search engine optimization to the website which brings up USFRA information for certain key words relating to agriculture.

Doug was one of the founding fathers of USFRA three years ago and he is pleased with the accomplishments of the alliance, which now includes over 80 agricultural organizations and companies. “I think we’re seeing some real strides in the right direction,” he said.

Listen to my interview with Doug and Lisa here: Interview with USFRA at AMS
2013 Ag Media Summit Photo Album