A Few Thoughts by John Nalivka: On public relations

All of us can list things that we think are important to succeeding in business and often, our list is comparable to those listed by others and might include cost management, production efficiency, and marketing. However, there is one item that is becoming increasingly important to agriculture and that is public relations.

The public often knows little about how the food that they consume every day is produced. That is by no means a criticism, but rather a fact that farmers and ranchers must recognize and address how they can make a positive change in the public’s perception of their business or more importantly, their livelihood. Any article or discussion that references climate change will also reference cattle production – in a negative way. If taken far enough, this will critically impact your business of producing beef and create significant risk to your business.

So, what is public relations going to entail? Furthermore, how will I find time, you ask? In today’s business environment, I would put marketing your calf crop and informing the public about how you raise cattle on equal footing. Both require a time commitment, but the payback will be worth that time spent. You can measure the economic benefit of a better marketing strategy by receiving more dollars per head while the time spent to educate the average person who may think cows are destroying the earth through climate change may not easily correspond to dollars and cents. At least not in the short term. But, at the end of the day, it could be much more than just dollars and cents.

Public relations for your ranching operation are probably easiest when someone might be driving by on the highway where you have a set of corrals. They see you working cattle and they stop to watch. While one response might be to question why they stopped and then become irritated because they are nosy. However, another response and the much better one would be to take time and strike up a conversation and answer any questions they may have. This is an opportunity for positive public relations. I often tell of that circumstance at my father-in-law’s ranch several years ago and the party who was passing by wanted to watch us rope and brand calves. Their comment when they left was a big thank you and appreciation for taking the time to visit and explain branding. This is only one example that demonstrates that taking the time to visit with someone who has absolutely no knowledge of raising cattle can go a long way to leaving an impression. That is positive public relations.

There are many ways to pursue a solid public relations campaign that will be positive for your ranching business as well as the beef industry ranging from answering someone’s question at the supermarket meat case to inviting students or community members out to the ranch. It all pays off in the end, but furthermore, your interest in informing the public about ranching and raising cattle and taking care of the resources can make the difference in their support for your business and the beef industry.