4 Double standard


It is a ruling which is undoubtedly sending shockwaves through all of BC and perhaps even all of Canadian animal agriculture. In early November, BC’s acting information and privacy commissioner Drew


McArthur ruled Elite Farm Services’ use of video cameras was not authorized under the Personal Information Protection Act. After an undercover Mercy for Animals video documented instances of animal abuse by Elite employees, the Chilliwack chicken catching company made it mandatory for the supervisor and two members of each of its catching crew to wear cameras on their safety vests while catching. McArthur calls the practice a quick fix, saying “it’s rarely effective in


solving…problems.” Instead of using surveillance to monitor their employees, he says the company should “improve hiring, training and supervision.” We agree the MFA video demonstrated the need for improvements in


those areas and we believe Elite agrees with that as well. But even after instituting better hiring practices and more training, how will the company know if its procedures are being followed if it does not monitor its employees? We note that the BC SPCA has started a petition asking for legislation to


require video surveillance of all farm businesses engaged in livestock production, transport and slaughter. Given increasing animal activism and consumer concerns, it only makes sense for industry to institute its own video surveillance. If such legislation is enacted, will the privacy commissioner nix it?


We find it highly ironic that MFA and other activist groups are lauded for their undercover videos while those legitimately involved in animal agriculture are vilified for them. We note MFA’s cameras were used surreptitiously without the knowledge of the people being videotaped while Elite publicly announced it would be videotaping its employees. If anyone is guilty of breaking the Personal Information Privacy Act, it is MFA, not Elite. It feels like a double standard to us!


Perception is in the eyes of the beholder


An effective logo unmistakably identifies something on sight. Logos are powerful marketing tools and the best of them become definitive


The Back Forty BOB COLLINS


symbols that are recognized around the world. See what image


comes to mind when you think of the following: Canada, Apple, Montreal Canadiens, Shell, Nike, the Olympics, New York Yankees, Chevrolet and MGM Studios. A logo can be invaluable; that is why the great ones are guarded so zealously and why so much money is invested in their creation. Agriculture, more by chance than choice, has inherited an image that pushes all the buttons of good logo design: the ubiquitous red barn. The mere outline of the gambrel roofline is instantly recognizable throughout Canada and the US. Given the value of conspicuous imagery, it is somewhat puzzling to see the red barn causing so much hand-wringing within the farm community. Twice in October, articles in the Western Producer took the red barn image to task. “Ag’s red barn image needs update: experts” ran a headline in the October 5 paper. Frank Mitloehner of the University of California-Davis was extensively quoted in opposition to the “red barn” image of agriculture. An editorial followed suit two weeks later, declaring, “Time to squelch agriculture’s outdated


red barn image.” Both articles contend the red barn image perpetuates an outdated perception of agriculture that plays into the hands of industry critics. Calls to ditch the red barn image come with a litany of aspersions cast on the industry’s past. This issue has been around for some time. It was raised at the 2015 annual meeting of the Canadian Farm Writers Federation when Robert Saik, founder and CEO of Alberta’s Agri-Trend Group, took organizers to task for including a red barn in the event logo. Somewhat ironically, a picture of a little red barn is featured on a banner on the Agri-Trend web site.


What the public really sees


We might fairly wonder just what troubling images the little red barn conjures in the public mind. I had the opportunity recently to pose the question to 39 people who were attending a paint night (paint nights are a “thing” now, apparently). By a show of hands, we determined that there was only one person present who wasn’t shopping for at least 50% of their household food purchases. I then showed them a picture of a tiny red barn surrounded by a hayfield with a tree on the blue- skyed horizon and asked: what does this make you think of, and how does it make you feel? Surprisingly, not one person said the picture made them think of a farm. The majority of them said it made them think of wholesome or natural. Hard work was a lesser


Publisher Cathy Glover


The agricultural news source in British Columbia since 1915 Vol. 103 No. 12 . DECEMBER 2017


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theme. As for how it made them feel? Nostalgic, safe, serene and communal. There wasn’t a single negative response, though the lady who associated the image with hard work felt her association could be taken either way. More interesting, perhaps, were the responses that the image didn’t generate: no one said it made them distrust modern agriculture or rue the passing of the family farm, or fret about how technology has ruined the food system. The five hallmarks of a good logo are: simple, memorable, timeless, versatile (scaleable) and appropriate. The little red barn would appear to hit the first four right on the nose, but we might quibble about appropriate. The barn’s detractors claim it is being co-opted by adversaries to advance an anti-agriculture agenda, but even if that is the case, abandoning the image altogether delivers it all the more easily into the enemy’s hands. Far better to claim it along with all the positive public perceptions, and back away from the “like us now because things were awful back then” defense. Sever agriculture of the past from the agriculture


of today and we could find our detractors have driven the discarded little red barn firmly into the resulting crack. It would become a PR battle on two fronts. Abandoning the red barn image would be like tossing the baby out with the bathwater. Far better to show critics and skeptics agriculture’s amazing and ongoing evolution then to burn down the barn and circle the wagons.


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