If you are a farmer, you have dedicated a good portion of your life to bettering the lives of others – but to keep doing that, your farm business needs to stay financially viable. Problem is, you may have trouble getting your customers as excited about your product as you are.
Today we are going to discuss soil health: its fundamental role in regenerative farming, why more people aren’t talking about it - and, as always, how you can use this to your advantage in your farm marketing.
Why We Need Healthy Soil
In order to grow food that is nutritious and delicious, we must begin with healthy soil – soil that is carbon-rich, and filled with a complex diversity of life. When you prioritize healthy soil, you will see positive impacts not only in your products, but in the world around you. We explore this concept further in the Farm Marketing Solutions Mission Statement.
As regenerative farming practices are more widely understood and adopted, it’s easier to see the disparity between farmers who focus on the ground under their feet, and those that do not. This difference offers a distinct marketing advantage for true stewards of the land – an advantage which conventional farmers cannot easily fake. If you try to sell an inferior product, good messaging can only get you so far.
Why Customers Don’t Care About Soil
In the age of instant gratification, a story that spans multiple years – and which cannot easily be shown in a short YouTube video – is a hard sell. The customer wants to know if your chicken is delicious, affordably priced, and easy to prepare, but they may not necessarily have the time or motivation to dig deeper.
As farm marketers, we strive to stand out on the grocery store shelves and at the farmers markets. That means we have to develop a clear, concise, and consistent message about our products – one that satisfies our customers’ desire for instant gratification, but which also carries a deeper meaning.
How To Use Soil To Sell More Food
The idea of soil health may not be the message that gets people in the door, but it can be what keeps them coming back for more. In order to effectively build soil health into your messaging, you should be familiar with how it effects everything you do, and how it makes the world a better place.
Armed with that knowledge, you will be able to create marketing campaigns which show your customers how their support for your efforts also helps save the planet. You can be their mentor, and the facilitator of their good deeds. One way to do this is to make them the hero of the story, guiding them toward the right choice, while doing most of the work for them.
As small farmers, we are tasked not only with the difficult work of raising food, but of educating the public about our practices. You may know all about the ways in which food production affects the planet, but there’s almost no way your customers are going to be as passionate about their purchases. It is that passion that you want to harness and share through your farm marketing.
To help you develop your message, we are recommending three documentaries about soil. They are entertaining, but they also offer concepts and sound bites you will be able to use in your own storytelling.
Three Documentaries About Soil
The Biggest Little Farm
The Biggest Little Farm is a beautifully-produced documentary about one couple’s transition from life in the city to life on the farm. Through masterful storytelling, we learn how the various elements of a natural farm are interconnected, and what it takes to build a farm that works in concert with the world around it.
Kiss The Ground
Kiss The Ground is not quite your average doomsday food documentary. Although you’ll learn many lessons from this film, its real power is in the extensive online resources it provides – a toolkit which will help you take further action, and create positive change.
Living Soil
Living Soil highlights the work of people across the United States who are incorporating the concept of healthy soils into our agricultural system. This movie focuses less on dramatic storytelling, and more on the science of what people are doing. And we love the fact that the entire movie is available to stream for free, which you can do from the video embedded on this page.
How To Sell Food & Save The Planet
If you tell someone something just once, you might as well have never said it. Likewise, a once-a-year posting to social media, or a small paragraph on your website, is not going to cut it. Real learning comes from repetition. You must remain passionate about your message, and then repeat that message to as many people as possible, over and over and over again.
Focus on clear, consistent, and concise storytelling.
Agriculture has built-in mechanisms which keep a farmer passionate about their work. If you enjoy learning, farming can teach you something new every year. Even if you were to read every book, and take every course, about working the land, you will still have to adapt that knowledge to your individual situation.
When you learn something new, your body releases chemicals which make you happy, thus reinforcing the experience as positive. Learning is a drug you can take over and over – and you’ll only get healthier as you do more of it. When you get that hit of dopamine, convert it into action: take a picture of what you’re doing at that moment, or craft a message that aligns with your mission statement, and then share it with those around you.
Your passion and expertise make you an interesting person, with good stories to tell. Not everyone wants to be a farmer, but most people love to hear about farming. Don’t be afraid to share your excitement, and let your freak flag fly.
Youtube Playlist on Soil Health
Books On Soil Health
The Carbon Farming Solution
A Global Toolkit of Perennial Crops and Regenerative Agriculture Practices for Climate Change Mitigation and Food Security
Drawdown
The most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming.
