The Alliance for Meals and Farming (AFF) hosted its fourth “Information, Not Worry” Produce Security Media Tour for registered dietitians, well being and vitamin writers and bloggers on September 13, 14 and 15 that includes crops within the Pacific Northwest.
Tour contributors visited pear, cherry, apple and blueberry farms within the Hood River and Beaverton, Oregon areas.
“Our aim for this tour is to offer our friends with a firsthand have a look at farming and the way growers work to offer protected and wholesome fruit and veggies,” says Kate Tynan, AFF Board Chair and Senior Vice President of the Northwest Horticultural Council.
“Due to our friends’ direct connections with shoppers, these excursions permit the AFF to boost its efforts to share and unfold our fact-based details about the care and dedication of produce farmers to develop these nutrient-dense meals.”
“The farmers we met confirmed how passionate they’re about agriculture and their lifestyle, however they have been additionally very upfront in regards to the challenges they face to make sure these wholesome merchandise attain shoppers,” says Teresa Thorne, AFF Government Director.
“Our friends have been clearly moved and impressed by these farmers and the tales shared. This is the reason these excursions are so impactful as a result of it’s arduous to copy these private interactions or the great thing about these farms,” Thorne says.
This yr’s friends are contributors to Meals Community, Washington Publish, At the moment’s Dietitian, Form Journal, U.S. Information and World Report, Good Morning America, CNN, WebMD, Huffington Publish, Buzzfeed, Glamour, Well being Journal, LA Occasions and Prevention, amongst others.
“We’ve seen the advantages of engagement and sharing of AFF’s fact-based data by these influencers over the previous couple of years,” Tynan says. “Their efforts in mainstream and social media have helped the AFF’s Protected Fruits and Veggies marketing campaign to constantly attain extra shoppers to fight the disparaging and deceptive rhetoric utilized by activist teams about produce security.”
The AFF additionally consists of scientists on the tour to offer technical experience on produce and employee security. This yr, Dr. Trevor Suslow, Extension Analysis Specialist Emeritus, College of California, Davis and Principal of T & Okay Suslow Consulting LLC in addition to Dr. Lee-Ann Jaykus, William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor at North Carolina State College, joined the 2021 tour.
The sponsors who made the 2021 tour potential included: California Giant Berry Farms, California Table Grape Commission, First Fruits Marketing, Markon Cooperative, Northwest Horticultural Council, Pear Bureau Northwest, Produce Marketing Association, U.S. Apple Association, U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council and the Washington State Fruit Commission/Northwest Cherry Growers.
The aim of the AFF is to offer science-based meals security details about natural and traditional produce in order that information, not worry, can information shoppers’ buying selections. The cornerstone of the AFF’s outreach efforts is the safefruitsandveggies.com web site, which incorporates details about farming, vitamin, well being, toxicology and danger evaluation for shoppers, media and nutritionists and dietitians.
Along with real-time social media posts throughout the tour, the influencers will likely be running a blog about their experiences and what they discovered. The AFF will share and distribute these blogs to business, media and vitamin communicators.
“We need to prolong our honest because of all of our friends for becoming a member of us and sharing their insights on how we are able to all proceed to work collectively to reassure shoppers in regards to the security of produce,” Thorne says. “We additionally need to thank our tour sponsors for each their assist in addition to sharing their data and views about agriculture and the challenges confronted by farmers.”
The Alliance for Meals and Farming is a non-profit group fashioned in 1989 which represents natural and traditional farmers and farms of all sizes. Alliance contributors are restricted to farmers of fruit and veggies, firms that promote, market or ship fruit and veggies or organizations that signify produce farmers. Our mission is to ship credible details about the protection of fruit and veggies.
