(KFEQ)-“If we don’t tell the story someone else will.”

Jeremy Jack, partner, Silent Shade Planting Company.

Jack considers himself the CEO of his farm in Belzoni Mississippi that employs roughly 30 workers.

However, he calls himself a general and a soldier.  One who can manage the farm at moment and hop under a semi stranded on the side of the road for some mechanic work the next.

But no one outside of his organization or agriculture production knows the hard work that it takes to operate and manage a farm.  It’s time to change that, but how?

Show and tell.

And on his farm, they plan to do just that.  The plan is demonstration days for the rice, corn, soybean and wheat farm that includes high tech equipment aimed at sustainability.

Also, through the use of blogs and webcams, they plan to show the day-to-day on their farm.

Throughout the 2014 Bayer Ag Issues Forum at Commodity Classic in San Antonio, one of the main topics is communication with consumers.

Consumers want to know more about their food, where it comes from and how it’s grown.  And there are plenty of others telling the wrong story about agriculture, concluded one panel on how farm CEO’s are reshaping agriculture.

Less than one percent of today’s population lives on the farm, and they are expected to grow the food to feed 9 billion people within the next 100 years.

Known as the Onion Man, Bruce Fraiser owns Dixondale Farms.  The farm producers roughly 70 percent of the nation’s onion seeds and also grows cantaloupe in Carrizo Texas.  They sell the onion seeds online or by mail.

Fraiser offers advice to farmers of all kinds.

“Think about the things that you do, what you do, or social media and do videos,” Fraiser said.

It’s time for farmers to join the conversation, to be the experts online and in the public because the public lacks the farmer perspective but wants to know more, according to the panel.

“If something is wrong with me I go see a doctor,” Jack said.  The public needs to understand what’s better; to go the doctor and ask a doctor tell you what’s right or wrong or go to the internet and ask Google.  Not saying there’s anything wrong with Google, I do it all the time. But if something’s wrong with me I’m going to go see a doctor.  So if I want to know something about food do I go to a blog or Google or to someone who does not necessarily have anything to do with agriculture at all and gives an opinion? Opinion and fact are completely different, and take the facts.”