Can you think of a time when you walked into a room and felt out of place? Maybe it was the first day of seventh grade after moving three counties away. Or the first day of college, hours away from home. Maybe it was when you started your first real job and realized everyone else on the payroll was over 40. Or when you had to stand up in front of a group of strangers at a community meeting to present your proposal for a new barn.
We can all remember situations where we felt out of place or out of place. In that moment, time stood still. We stood there feeling like a sore thumb, desperately searching for someone to make us feel like we were meant to be there. Honestly, I can remember some of those moments where I wished I could just walk out of the room. The only thing keeping me there was the knowledge of what I would lose if I left.
So imagine what could happen if someone who doesn’t come from a farm, who doesn’t know much about farming, who maybe looks different than us, walks into a room full of farmers. Depending on how we receive them, they might decide it’s easier to leave. When they leave, we lose the opportunity to connect with them, have a conversation, help them learn more about why we do what we do, and maybe even get them to partner with us to promote our products.
I recently attended the Northeast Dairy Business Innovation Summit, where a BIPOC panel was hosted to discuss how the dairy industry can better connect with people outside of our community. If you don’t know what BIPOC stands for, it refers to Black, Indigenous, and other people of color. As I listened to the panel, I realized that it’s up to all of us in dairy and farming to help those who aren’t part of our farming community feel more welcome and included.
Questions to be answered
This is especially important considering that farmers are an ever-shrinking minority. With less than 1.5% of our society involved in farming, we rely on others to help us share our story and tell the story of what we do every day to protect the food we produce, the animals on our farms and the land from which it all comes. We also need to encourage more people outside our farming community to become part of our industry, because their diverse perspectives can help us better respond to the desires of our consumers.
Those who spoke as part of the BIPOC panel talked about how we as an industry need to put in the work and time to make people outside of agriculture feel more welcome and included. They shared four questions that someone from a different background asks when they’re considering getting more involved in something. Keeping these questions in mind will help us better communicate with them and attract them to our industry.
1. Do I feel safe?
Think about how you felt the first time you traveled to an unfamiliar place. Did you ever feel like your safety was at risk? If so, how likely were you to return to that place? Wanting to feel safe isn’t just about feeling physically safe. It’s also about emotional safety. Transparency and honesty, actively listening, and encouraging people to share their own ideas are all ways to make them feel safe, both physically and emotionally.
2. Is it accessible?
This is about making it easy for people to get there or participate in the event or opportunity you want to include them in. This might mean bringing a farm-to-table dinner to a more urban area to reach people where they are. This might mean providing transportation or creating accommodations for the disabled. This might mean giving your products to food banks or community kitchens and reaching out to the leaders of those facilities to tell your story.
3. Did they ask me to participate?
One panelist spoke about how a local cheese supplier ran cheese camps with retail cheesemongers. Another spoke about how they gave a student from an inner-city school the opportunity to shadow the farm. A third shared how they set up idea-sharing forums between farmers and customers to talk about new products and opportunities.
4. Are they working on building a relationship with me?
For most people, feeling included means knowing someone cares about them. It’s about reaching out, including them in the conversation, and checking in with them. Building that trust and relationship requires ongoing, open and honest communication.
Think back to when you were in middle school or when you first started college. It was always hard in the beginning because you felt like you didn’t fit in. Remember how it felt when someone finally took the time to get to know you, to include you in the conversation, and to make you feel like you were part of the group. That’s really all most people ever want – to feel like they belong.
