The California Association of Pest Control Advisers recently held their 42nd Annual CAPCA Conference & Agri-Expo in Anaheim.
It was a sellout crowd at the Disneyland Convention Center, with about 1,600 registered participants and more than 160 different trade show vendors participating. The theme of this year’s conference was “Feeding a Nation, Fighting the Fear,” with speakers covering a variety of topics related to public interest in agriculture.
David Hollinrake, vice president of Agricultural Commercial Operations (ACO) Marketing with Bayer CropScience, talked about a program that Bayer CropScience sponsors called AgVocate. “AgVocacy really is about engaging the farmer population so that they can represent modern agriculture to the consumer population that has a growing disconnect from what we do,” Hollinrake said.
There has been a growing disconnect between those who are involved with agriculture and the overall consumer base.
“With misinformation sometimes comes misconceptions and mistrust,” Hollinrake noted.
One of the reasons for the divide between growers and consumers is that the number of people involved in agriculture has declined significantly over the past 50 years.
“When my grandfather grew up on the farm, some 40 percent of people were involved in production agriculture. Today, there’s only 1 percent of the population involved in agriculture,” Hollinrake said.
Source: californiaagtoday.com