Canadian Food Focus: A Huge Win For Public Trust In Ag

“People spend a vast amount of time thinking about food—enjoying it, planning for it, worrying about it…” says Dorothy Long, Director of Communications for Farm & Food Care Saskatchewan. “We need to realize that the number one way that consumers interact with agriculture is through food. If we want to share information and build trust in farming practises, we need to start the conversation with food.”

In 2019, Farm & Food Care Saskatchewan (FFC SK) launched Canadian Food Focus, a national consumer outreach program to tell Canadian food and farming stories, explore how food is grown and raised, share recipes, and provide advice to help people make confident food choices.

The website and social media channels now achieve over 2.5 million impressions every month, mainly from Canada’s large urban centres. The initiative also sees well over 500,000 engagements each month as users like, reshare, view videos and so on. The website recently won a national CAMA Award for Best Website Directed at the Public.

The FFC SK Board realized that they needed to change the way they were communicating if they wanted to reach urban Canadian consumers.

“Often public trust initiatives in our industry end up reflecting back to ourselves,” points out Clinton Monchuk, FFC SK Executive Director. “Meanwhile, less than 3% of the Canadian population have a direct tie to a farm or ranch. The future of this industry really depends on us connecting with non-farmers. With Canadian Food Focus, we’ve successfully exited the echo chamber and we’re reaching and engaging Canadian consumers, especially in urban centres. This is a huge win for public trust in agriculture.”

“By having conversations about food, these are gateways to other topics people wonder about like farm practices, health issues, food production methods, and stories of people in the industry,” Long explains.

Canadian Food Focus works with a network of more than 25 Canadian contributors who provide content to the website. Contributors’ expertise covers the gamut from dietetics, home economics and communications to farming and agricultural research.

Some of the cool resources on Canadian Food Focus:

Almost 60 videos about different types of farms across Canada
Cook-along videos of recipes using Canadian ingredients
Ask a Farmer/Ask an Expert videos that answer common consumer questions
YouTube Series that follows a Canadian rancher as she shares stories and information about their ranch each month
YouTube series following a mixed grain farmer as he seeds and harvests his crop
Articles with timely and interesting information under the categories of Health, Recipes, In Your Kitchen, On the Farm and Canadian Food Stories
What’s In Season chart of Canadian fruits and vegetables

“Essentially, our ultimate goal is to improve food literacy and build trust in the Canadian food chain from farm to plate. We want to celebrate the great food grown here,” Long says.

“We’re all in this industry together, and we’re so happy to have this gathering place that showcases all facets of agriculture,” Monchuk says.

People who work in Canadian agriculture are encouraged to explore and share Canadian Food Focus resources through their own networks.