Agchat.org and the general subject of how GMO special interests use SM to advance their goals

These are my conclusions on the penetration of the social media space in agriculture by GMO special interests.

I tried to pursue this on Twitter, was asked by board members of Agchat.org that it could be better pursued off line by email, which I agreed to, and then once that happened, the shutters came down. I was given good answers but told I couldn't post them on my blog.

Well, it doesn't work like that on Farm Blogs From Around the World.

If someone wants to take a public discussion out of the public eye, and then when it's out of the public eye, think that I am not going to make that correspondence public, then they don't understand the meaning of the word TRANSPARENT and they don't understand THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH.

The best way I can do this is to publish my correspondence from and to people at www.agchat.org after they asked me to move to email. Which I agreed to, but not in the expectation that that would be a short cut to suppressing my views and voice in a public forum.

Could I take this opportunity to remind everyone that this blog has been around a lot longer than www.agchat.org and secondly, it was this blog that initially recommended www.agchat.org to its readers. Whether I still do, you'll need to read to the end....

NB. For first time visitors to this blog, may I also say this:

• I am not, nor never have been, a journalist
• I do not make money from this blog
• I am not an Amazon affiliate even for the book that is advertised on this blog
• To the best of my knowledge I am not aware of this blog helping sell the book advertised on this blog
• I think my book has sold less than 10 copies in the USA and this sure won't help it sell any more
• I do have a 5 hectare small-holding in rural France
• I do consider myself just as much a member of the #agchat community on Twitter as anyone else, even if I may not have time or inclination to participate as much as I would like to
• No organization of any type, no company of any type asked me to look more closely at www.agchat.org
• I have no hidden agenda
• I am not a troll
• I am not on a witch hunt
• It was entirely at the request of FARMER members of the #agchat space (by members, I mean anyone who follows that # on Twitter)
• I have no dollars in this discussion; it has EATEN time over the past ten days to NO benefit to me financially, emotionally or practically.
• I am not planning on writing a book on farming or social media or GMO or special interests.
• My next book has yet to be given to my agent, let alone find a publisher.
• It's a novel to do with loss and has NOTHING in any way, shape or form to do with farming and I very much doubt it would appeal to many of the people I am in email contact with regarding this blog, past, present and future; ditto all the Tweeps who I have been engaged with in the last 10 days.
• Do not buy my books, past, present or future. They are rubbish despite what the critics say.
• World, be engaged, be alert, but above all, get an effing sense of humour some of you Tweeps.

That all said, here's the correspondence. Draw your own conclusions.

Email from Mike Haley, VP of www.agchat.org to me, Ian Walthew who runs this blog, after he suggested we move the discussion to email.

July 20, 2010

Ian,

I think I understand your concerns, but honestly am still a little confused. Your original questions where pointed 1) directly at who funded the foundation, then it 2) evolved into GMO companies planting people into social media outlets, then 3) evolved into the current accusations that gmo companies pay farmers to tweet their views for them.

Now, I can guarantee that the first concern about the foundation has been very transparent about its mission and goals. To date we are running on a budget of less than $9,000 from 10 sponsors, some farmers, most of this money has gone towards legal paperwork to get classified as a non profit and for the upcoming conference. We are working on the sponsorship page, but when we first collected money from sponsors we forgot to get their approval to list them on our website (something that we have corrected for future sponsors) so it is not listed yet but will be shortly.

The other two concerns are an unfortunate reality of life, I see it used against us every day when it comes to animal rights activists and spam accounts that they use. I truely hope that no companies are using agchat to further their agenda, but if they are its up to readers to come to their own conclusions. Your tweets, most likely unintentional, give the feeling that you are accusing the entire idea of aghcat of being some type of monsanto conspiracy, that I dont approve of as their are several very well intended farmers that participate during, and throughout the week. I challenge you to look at the people that contacted you about agchat, there is one particular organization called XXX [REDACTED BY IAN WALTHEW] that pays people to blog about gmo's and is not very transparent about it so it works both ways.

As far as my tweets, I have never been paid by ANYONE to tweet or received any discount on seed to do so. I tweet about my farm, and my views on agriculture, I have every right to do so. I am not sure how it is in France, but in the US most farmers have embraced GMO's as a tool they can use to be better farmers. This fact may be the reason why you dont see many farmers speaking out against the seed companies that sell GMO crops, we dont feel that threatened by them. That said I dont use 100% GMO's, I just use them when i find it worthwhile for me to do so. That said me and my father have been running the numbers for next year and may go 100% GMO free. We will see if its time effective and cost effective on our farm.

I completely support other types of farming and encourage diversity so the consumer can have choice in the products he buys. Part of this choice is why I may switch to GMO free as the premium may allow more profits for my farm over GMO plants. I have several Organic neighbors that I have high respect for and work with very well and plant buffer strips between our farms and other methods to ensure that we are not encroaching on their rights to farm in another method. The local farming community is very diverse and has a very good relationship with each other.

Feel free to ask more questions of me and the foundation, very willing to answer them

Mike

@farmerhaley

Email from me to Mike in reply:

July 21, 2010

Hi Mike,

Thanks very much for taking the time to write to me about this in such comprehensive detail.

I am the first to admit that I'm not a professional advocate, and that I am new to Twitter, so my approach has no doubt been unclear and clumsier than it would be if I was a professional lobbyist or expert on social media. Equally, Twitter is a tough environment to get people to read carefully what you are saying.

As a result, it was, I promise you, completely unintentional in giving ANY feeling that I am accusing 'the entire idea of aghcat of being some type of Monsanto conspiracy'. Absolutely not. I am an agchat fan.

GMO is a hot topic in the EU - until now completely banned despite a limited number of test hectares. Equally, you can't import GMO derived food into Europe. That said, there has been a recent decision to allow individual member states more leeway in developing their own GMO policies. But the public mood, both within the farming community (with the exception of the SOME large cereal farmers - and large in Europe doesn't mean the same as large in the USA) and in the consumer community is generally totally against GMO. And no one seems to want it in their food.

Let me tell you my position on GMO.

By 2050 we are going to have feed an extra 3 billion people, and with climate conditions (yes, I am firm believer in global warming, including the contribution of the beef industry - methane - and deforestation in the Amazon and Central America, mostly illegal to accommodate new beef farmers) that's going to be tough without GMO.

However, I believe the USA has moved too fast on GMO when there simply isn't anything approaching the consensus within the global scientific community on the pros and cons of GMO for bio-diversity at a 'green level'.

In short, I just don't believe we know enough yet to roll this out, in terms of implications for consumer health and the ecology.

At a economic-political level, there is a very real danger of Big Ag seed companies getting a de facto total grip on the global seed market, which would not be in the interests of any farmer re. prices. (We already have a case of a GM seed having problems and guess who are the only people who can come up with the sprays to treat them? BigAg.)

At a consumer level, and for you personally, I think you're thinking in the right direction going non-GMO at least, if not organic. As GMO is banned in food here within the EU, the organic label is much more than being just GMO-free. I think farmers are fighting a mass grass roots consumer movement in the developped world, if they think producing GMO crops, or feeding GMO feed to stock, is the way forward, and as someone said on agchat with me, even McDonalds understand this.

As to penetration of the social media space, I've said repeatedly this applies to any 'issue' and by any special interest group including, yes, anti-GMO to vegans.

Regarding, BigAg funding of the agchat space, the answers I got were a little opaque in terms of the 'not currently', 'not at this time' nature.

Someone argued that 'why shouldn't agchat take sponsorship from special interests?'

Well, being a farmer led community doesn't mean taking, in my humble opinion, BigAg money. I'd look to other non-profit foundations for money, and I think its a mistake to let people who are NOT farmers in a farmer led community, take such an active role in organising and steering community debate, especially when they directly or indirectly take money from BigAg as employees or consultants.

Finally, and you should be aware of this, there are members of the agchat community who are SCARED to speak out on this issue, and a number of them are encouraging me to take this issue forward, because they feel they can't.

They are worried about being voted off various farming organization bodies etc., other people's perception of them in the agchat space, or even scarier tactics.

That doesn't speak well for the community does it, if members of the community are scared to speak their true views and concerns?

They like me doing it because I am:

a) a nobody;

b) not a farmer (I have a 5 hectare small holding; a cow I buy each year, take to abattoir, butchers and share with three other families; two pigs, chickens, rabbits and I barter pasture for hay and potatoes. Nearly everything we eat comes from our land, or from the 'commune' - county would you say in USA? No, too big, we're about 7 sq hectares of mountain country between 800 m and 1600 m and most is forest;

c) I'm not a journalist;

d) I'm not anti-GM per se;

e) I'm an author, but I am not writing or promoting a book about farming or social media or any other product or cause;

f) I can't be pressured by anyone. Nobody owns me, and I don't owe anyone a dime to anyone, not even a mortgage.

Ironically the majority of the people conversing with me/insulting me/questioning my motives, are NOT the tweeps I suspect of having a BigAg agenda and being paid so to do.

The defensiveness of the community is in no doubt in large part to the nature of my approach, as @FairFoodFight and other agchat folk you would know have said privately to me BUT the defensiveness does not make consumer observers of this discussion on Twitter less convinced by my beliefs, but MORE so, and they're telling me this.

As to you Mike, I believe you. Straight up.

Personally I'd rather be deceived by someone than accuse someone of being a liar.

And I've never thought of you as one.

But I did decide - and yes, I did break that decision with Jeff not least of all because he is PRESIDENT of @agchat - not to get in to calling tweeps out individually. Why not?

Because I don't believe anyone has the right to police the Internet one way or another.

I've repeatedly said it should be the community that explores this together not one individual.

But the community has been more in a state of a personal protection of their own reputations and NOT in discussing the issue of special interest penetration of the social media space.

It's not my job to do this, but I am member of the community myself, even though people have continually implied I am attacking a community that belongs to 'them' with no self-awareness that I consider myself a member of the same community I am forcefully challenging.

Mike, why don't we agree this?

I'll post your email on my blog and my reply and tweet the link.

You RT it and encourage everyone who is in the agchat space to RT the link to the blog post with your letter and mine.

You agree to forward our emails to as many of the most important agchat space players that you can think of and have email addresses for this. (Please bcc me or if you're not happy sharing their email addresses with me, just tell me who you have sent the email to, and when).

And although I can't insist nor would insist on this, why don't you try and encourage the Agchat Foundation board folk but also any key grassroots agchat space players to debate this issue and about what your policy is on transparency. You know, grass root movements, farmer-led movements (state Farm Bureaus for example) have a reputation of quite quickly losing touch with their founding grass root principles.

I personally would be inclined to shoot for something like the following:

a) that you welcome GMO seed players (and other non-farming special interests) to take part in the agchat space, but do it in a way where they do it the name of their company spokesperson or employees;

b) that you hope all people in the aghcat space will make clear their own affiliation to/support for any special interest group - from PETA to BigAg seed - on their Twitter profile and that there is the expectation that any community participant does not receive money from GMO players or any special interest groups, unless they are either a declared special interest lobbyist or employee;

c) that you take a strategic decision NOT to take money from any GMO players or any other special interest group.

d) that you encourage people to look out for tweeps who may not be all that they seem. This is after all, the Internet. Imagine if you were giving advice to your daughter about using an Internet dating service/dating space.

e) think carefully about the wisdom of letting special interest employed Tweeps be so active in steering/organising the online discussions.

Now the above is just my humble opinion as a member of the agchat community, but if the community can't listen and disseminate the views of its members, which it clearly can't as witnessed by the incoming I have received and from remarks by FARMER members of the community too scared to raise their heads on this issue EVEN THOUGH they agree with me, then you can't be in denial that there isn't something wrong about this grass roots farmer led community and that it doesn't need further thought, reflection, debate and ACTION.

Looking forward to hearing from you. Sorry to cause you any personal crap - it was NOT my intention, on that you have my word. As with everything I've said in this email.

Kind regards,

Ian

www.ianwalthew.com

@Ian Walthew (Twitter)

www.farmblogs.blogspot.com (I started this a while back, way before I had even heard of social media or Twitter; I don't make a dime out of it; I do it when I have time and I have a backlog of blogs to recommend and post about - probably will be in September after I've finished my next novel and school holidays are over)

Email to Jeff Fowle, President of www.agchat.org, after he too suggested we move the discussion to email and off Twitter.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Dear Jeff,

The email address you DM me didn't work, so I am trying again.

Below you will find the email from Mike Haley to me, my reply and my proposal.

Jeff, I asked MPK if she was one of the prime movers behind Agchat and she dodged the question in a totally disingenuous way by saying that she was one of 13 founders.

You must know I believe that this does not square, in any shape, way or form with this:

http://jplovescotton.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/mpkbestnominated/

None of the other 13 were nominated but her and I put it to you and Mike that this was her initiative and she was the prime mover in getting it off the ground and she was probably instrumental in identifying the mix of board directors, including yourself?

As President, I would very much like a straight answer to that question.

I'd also like to post you and Mike's version of events and your position and mine and be done with it, because I haven't got the time.

I'd also like to refer you to comment I wrote last night on http://sollmana.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/the-foundation-the-sponsors-and-the-important-stuff/

I hope that Sollmana posts my reply, but we shall have to wait and see. If she doesn't, you may wish to write to her and ask

a) why not?

b) does she have a copy of the comment she has not yet posted that she could send to you?

With kind regards,

Ian

Email FROM Jeff Fowle, President of www.agchat.org, to me in reply.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Ian,

1. MPK created #agchat, the hashtag & Tuesday discussion as well as #foodchat. She was nominated for the Mashable Award for starting these two discussions in 2009. The Foundation had not even been created. That occurred in April, 2010.

2. The AgChat Foundation is ENTIRELY SEPARATE. While directors of the Foundation do serve as moderators, MPK still oversees #agchat / #foodchat.

3. The Foundation was created through discussions between myself, Mike, Ray, & Darin through our meeting during #agchat discussions. A group, including the four of us and nine others (the Board of Directors) hammered out the details and the Foundation was born.

4. The Foundation has operated on voluntary time and effort since it was formed. We have received some donations from individuals and a couple of businesses, which will be posted on the website soon.

5. I cannot stress enough that #agchat/#foodchat and @agchat/@foodchat are MPK’s creations. The Foundation (agchat.org & @AgChatFound) is a creation of a group of farmers, ranchers,a dairyman, a cowboy & a horseman.

6. I see no need to post any of these private emails. It has been a private discussion between us. If you or anyone else has further questions they may be sent to me personally or through info@agchat.org, I see all requests.

Jeff Fowle

Email FROM Mike, Vice-President of www.agchat.org, to me in reply to my proposal to publish our correspondence on this blog, and then move on.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Thanks Ian,

I value, your thoughts. I agree with Jeffs response to you earlier as well.

I will look for your comment on Amanda's blog and answer your questions there and we can use that as a place to have this discussion, I am also hoping that Barth from Fair Food Fight may post his thoughts as well as I feel that may be a more neutral environment to discuss.

Feel free to continue asking questions, but I will share the feedback that I have received from several people in the community. Most of us use the #agchat tag to keep in touch and learn from othersabout what is happening on their farms throughout the week. Several people feel its been hard to keep in touch with others as you have put the #agchat tag in almost all of your tweets and monopolized the stream. Do with as you wish but it will continue to aggregate people.

Our state fair is starting and I have will have very little computer time over the next week so I am uncomfortable with you posting my email on your blog as I will not be able to respond to questions appropriately as they are asked.

Please feel free to share my email and your response privately with those that have contacted you, but I do ask that you remove the following two sentences as I am uncomfortable sharing one point before we get the website updated and should not have accused a particular organization without proof in the second part:

"To date we are running on a budget of less than $9,000 from 10 sponsors, some farmers, most of this money has gone towards legal paperwork to get classified as a non profit and for the upcoming conference"

"I challenge you to look at the people that contacted you about agchat, there is one particular organization called XXX {REDACTED BY IAN WALTHEW} that pays people to blog about gmo's and is not very transparent about it so it works both ways."

Here is my revised email:

Ian,

I think I understand your concerns, but honestly am still a little confused. Your original questions where pointed 1) directly at who funded the foundation, then it 2) evolved into GMO companies planting people into social media outlets, then 3) evolved into the current accusations that gmo companies pay farmers to tweet their views for them.

Now, I can guarantee that the first concern about the foundation has been very transparent about its mission and goals. We are working on the sponsorship page, but when we first collected money from sponsors we forgot to get their approval to list them on our website (something that we have corrected for future sponsors) so it is not listed yet but will be shortly.

The other two concerns are an unfortunate reality of life, I see it used against us every day when it comes to animal rights activists and spam accounts that they use. I truely hope that no companies are using agchat to further their agenda, but if they are its up to readers to come to their own conclusions. Your tweets, most likely unintentional, give the feeling that you are accusing the entire idea of aghcat of being some type of monsanto conspiracy, that I dont approve of as their are several very well intended farmers that participate during, and throughout the week.

As far as my tweets, I have never been paid by ANYONE to tweet or received any discount on seed to do so. I tweet about my farm, and my views on agriculture, I have every right to do so. I am not sure how it is in France, but in the US most farmers have embraced GMO's as a tool they can use to be better farmers. This fact may be the reason why you dont see many farmers speaking out against the seed companies that sell GMO crops, we dont feel that threatened by them. That said I dont use 100% GMO's, I just use them when i find it worthwhile for me to do so. That said me and my father have been running the numbers for next year and may go 100% GMO free. We will see if its time effective and cost effective on our farm.

I completely support other types of farming and encourage diversity so the consumer can have choice in the products he buys. Part of this choice is why I may switch to GMO free as the premium may allow more profits for my farm over GMO plants. I have several Organic neighbors that I have high respect for and work with very well and plant buffer strips between our farms and other methods to ensure that we are not encroaching on their rights to farm in another method. The local farming community is very diverse and has a very good relationship with each other.

Feel free to ask more questions of me and the foundation, very willing to answer them

Mike

@farmerhaley

Email from me to Mike Haley, Vice-President of www.agchat.org, in response to the above email.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Mike,

I'm really uncomfortable with this.

You and Jeff wanted me to email you and in so doing move the conversation out of a public space into a private one.In good faith I did so, because I was cluttering up Twitter.

I get your email, and make a very, very reasonable proposal that I post both our emails on a widely respected farmer content blog which I do run for no money and no return as a hobby and as a public service and have done way before you guys came on the scene, and then we all move on.

Then Jeff writes me, but says NO, I can't publish it on my blog.

Now you agree with him PLUS wanting to shift the debate to a very pro-agchat.org blogger who's been pretty unpleasant about me and my motives PLUS telling me the below and absurdly asking me not to reveal what you say about "there is one particular organization called XXX {REDACTED BY IAN WALTHEW] that pays people to blog about gmo's and is not very transparent about it so it works both ways."

Sorry, but I ain't playing.

I 'll consider not mentioning the name of

XXX {REDACTED BY IAN WALTHEW]

(only because I don't want to cause you any grief) but need I say more....? For crying out loud, what the heck

is

Janice's main BUSINESS goal, despite whatever personal passion she may have for farming.

I am going to publish both your and Jeff's emails, and my replies, and the one below and this one. On my blog. Then I am moving on, off Twitter on this subject, and off asking you more questions. I will make my own post, and that will be that. If you want to link my correspondence or yours to any other blog or use it on any other blog (something I doubt very much you will do) then please feel free to do so.

That I am afraid is what the Internet and freedom of speech is all about. And the emails were sent to me, and that's that.

I am over being given the run-around by people like Michele Payn-Knoper, I don't have the time for this, I recommended your org. on my blog in very good faith; in very good faith I have said repeatedly I think the agchat space is great; I've nothing against GM interests being involved, but the run-around I've got from MPK and others, it's enough.

I'm posting. And then I will no longer be in your life or you in mine and I will feel I have fulfilled what I set out to do which is to give this subject a damn good airing when key members of your own community are too intimidated to speak out. I am not intimidated.

If you want to comment further, please post comments on my blog post, whenever you like and I will publish them, whatever they say.

Can't be more reasonable than that.

I actually have great respect for the farmers on the board and advisory board of Agchat.org, you included.

However, I happen to strongly believe agchat.org is the brainchild (as in the idea being seeded by) of GM interests, even when I don't include YOU nor the majority of its board and nor the vast majority of your community, yourself included, and people like Amy as GM interests or being in the pocket thereof.

However, collectively you are being manipulated and making a grave mistake letting non-farmers onto the board of a farmer led organisation.

I also think it's a great shame when transparent loving people as you claim to be, should be so determined to suppress my questions and the issues I have raised and get them out of the public eye. It renders agchat.org no good, and I'd advise you to have a serious rethink about what you're doing, who you plan to take money from and who you let moderate your discussions, who you let play such critical roles on your board and advisory board, and get back to basics pretty damn fast.

Which are, as I understand it:

Transparent, diverse (including pro-GM people but saying so in language we all understand) and farmer led.

And if there's a pro-GM group out there paying people to blog about GM, why the hell would you believe there wouldn't be special interests paying people to Tweet?

Which has been my point all along.

I think you and the three other top men all need a strong cup of coffee.

That's one man's opinion, do with it what you like. I could be wrong, I could be right, who knows?

What I do know that I am damn straight about believing in the power and possibilities of social media for farmers and I'm even surer Agchat.org is going to play, is playing, a critical and central role at least in the USA, but its universal Mike as you know. Look at my blog!

If you want to be farmer led and transparent then walk the talk.

Suppressing me, my questions, getting them off Twitter and into what you somehow imagine is a private domain (my email box that people like you have written to, knowing full well my interest in this topic and that I run a blog), then I'm afraid that's a mistake.

Anyway, I'll post, I'll have done what I think is right, you can do what you think is right, and we'll be out of each other's hair.

I will still continue no doubt to follow the #agchat space, but from a discreet distance. And I will continue to watch out for paid special interest Tweeps working against all you wish to be - transparent.

Good luck with it. I think for ANY farmer to do anything other than bloody well survive is an incredible act of public service and I wish all farmer board members the very best will in the world.

KR
Ian

Email FROM Mike Haley, Vice-President of www.agchat.org, in response to the above email.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Ian,

With all do respect you have the right to do as you please, I felt you would respect my privacy the same as you have respected the privacy of the people that have emailed you. Feel free to post them on your blog as you wish though.

I have answered your questions best I can, its up to you to draw your own conclusions from there, as many others have that followed the conversation over the past months.

Mike

_____________________________________________

That then concludes the correspondence on this matter as far as I am concerned.

I think it has been a useful discussion on Twitter (search me under IanWalthew for the entire time line since last week and judge for yourself) and a useful exchange of views in these emails.

For those who want a bit more detail I'll post some edited highlights of the Twitter discussion to avoid you having to go through the entire time line but of course, for a full-view and to get both sides of the discussion fully seen, and who said what and why and when, you'd need to read the time line from Tuesday of last week.

I'm relieved that this is nearly over, I have to say.

Not normal Farm Blog fare I know - where I VERY RARELY express a privately held view, but I was the one in this case who recommended agchat.org (and I still do), I just think one has to have one's eyes fully open when considering who is participating not so much with Agchat.org as members but particularly on Twitter chats concerning #agchat #food @agchat or indeed ANY social media space where powerful and very well funded special interests are OBVIOUSLY at play.

(And I'm afraid to spare some well-intentioned farmers some grief, I did elect to redact just ONE example of such an organization).

FINALLY, YOU WILL FIND BELOW THE COMMENT I POSTED, BUT HAS NOT YET BEEN PUBLISHED AS FAR AS I KNOW AT TIME OF WRITING, ON THE OTHER BLOG REFERRED TO IN THE ABOVE CORRESPONDENCE, AND WHICH I CAN TRUTHFULLY SAY TO REGULAR FANS OF 'FARM BLOGS FROM AROUND THE WORLD', I CANNOT RECOMMEND BECAUSE THE BLOGGER CONCERNED IS NOT A FARMER AND NOT VERY NICE TO ME:

http://sollmana.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/the-foundation-the-sponsors-and-the-important-stuff/#comment-22

HERE'S THE COMMENT I LEFT HERE ON THE ABOVE POST ABOUT THE TWITTER DISCUSSION ABOUT AG.CHAT ETC. (AWAITING MODERATION SINCE TUESDAY I THINK)

I saw a tweet that led me here, and when here, I saw one of your tweets saying why did many farmers need a spokesperson to speak up about concerns re. Agchat.

If I may I’d like to try and answer.

The reason why ‘many others’ don’t want to get into the questions I am asking is because, quite frankly, they are concerned, some have used the word ‘scared’, about the consequences for them regarding their involvement – as farmers and individuals, NOT as employees of companies or members of anti-BigAg Seed groups – in farming organizations, local, state and national groups and indeed within their ‘real’ community and circle of off-line friends.

Now, you can take it or leave it, but I got interested in Agchat.org back in April via my blog – about farmers ONLY – http://www.farmblogs.blogspot.com

I even personally recommended it.

Then I started to follow it a bit on Twitter and as my own concerns about SOME aspects of various peoples involvement within that community space grew, I received a number of emails from people – ALL FARMERS, ALL PARTICIPANTS WITHIN THAT COMMUNITY, telling me of their concerns. Concerns that I shared.

So I studied it a bit more.

Then I decided that as I hadn’t got anything to lose personally in terms of raising certain issues, and because these farmers were not prepared to, and openly said so, one saying ‘because I know the tactics of these people’ (meaning BigAg seed special interests), I decided to stick my neck above the parapet.

I may not have done it in the best possible way – SM and Twitter is a very small part of my life and I’m a relative newbie – but the vitriol and insults and accusations made against some author stuck out here in the middle of rural France made me realise exactly why US farmers involved in Agchat would want to keep their heads down.

But that vitriol has only been matched by the number of DMs/emails I have received FROM FARMERS involved in the agchat community, basically saying they agree with me but can’t get involved.

Now, that doesn’t speak very well of the community does it?

What I have said to FarmerHaley is this: listen Mike, I asked you to email me, you did, I’ve replied, why don’t I make a blog posting about this for my prime readership (people who come to http://www.farmblogs.blogspt.com – a lot of farmers when I only have about 90 followers on Twitter and half of them are new because of this agchat debate) and then I’ll have made an intelligent balanced post on my blog, I can put the link to my post on Twitter and I’ll be done with the damn thing. Mike can obviously do the same, or post my email on the Agchat website in the interests of reciprocal transparency. Mike is a busy farmer, and I’m waiting on that.

What I’m finding alarming about all this is the amount of personal invective directed at someone who questions. I thought this was meant to be a community of diverse views and participants etc? Well I can tell you, and if you follow me on Twitter or look at my timeline you’ll see, I am getting very opaque answers to very direct questions, and repeated accusations that I am this, that or the other, when I have repeatedly explained my position.

The entire experience has done nothing but strengthen my and the suspicions of others about SOME aspects of SOME peoples involvement in Agchat and the entirely less than transparent connection between them and BigAd seed special interests.

As I wrote to Mike, if Monsanto etc want to give AgChat a load of money I wouldn’t take it, but I wouldn’t take it from anti-GM people or PETA either. I don’t think it serves the interests of a ‘farmer-led’ organisation (which actually, I’m not convinced it is on a day to day practical level) to take money from special interests. Surely that is a totally reasonable position that anyone could respect at least, even if they don’t agree with it?

But if BigAg seed want to tweet under their name, declaring their interests, that’s fine by me and lots of other people in the agchat space.

But not via tweeps whose connection to them we don’t know about, nor by ‘volunteer’ employees and lobbyists and social media consultants who have BigAg as CLIENTS and who are claiming to be putting all this time into Agchat as if it wasn’t a part of the day to day job and part of how they earned money from those clients!!

I mean come on, let’s get real here.

Is it just me that’s finding all this a little odd?

No, so that’s one thing.

But I do think an overall sense of protectiveness by real farmers who have nothing to do with BigAg seed money, is causing them are to go bananas about what I am saying because they think I am anti Agchat, anti BigAg seed (not entirely true, my position is more nuanced as I’ve explained to Mike in my email) or whatever.

Their passion is getting in the way of reason.

And all I’m trying to do is to introduce a little bit of reason to leaven the passion with. Not kill the baby.

I hope that’s all clear, but you’ve got my email address if I can answer any more questions.

KR
Ian

http://www.farmblogs.blogspot.com
http://www.ianwalthew.com
@IanWalthew on Twitter