The Center for Food Integrity (CFI) has launched “Meet America’s Farmers,” a YouTube channel of videos featuring today’s farmers.

The channel was developed to offer consumers the opportunity to observe the commitment of today’s farmers to raising safe, healthy and affordable food.

Individual farmers and farm organizations are invited to create their own videos for the channel, using a shared values approach to connect with consumers.

The goal is to create a variety of videos featuring America’s farmers, allowing them to share their stories and “open their farms” to consumers who are interested in better understanding how their food is raised.

CFI research indicates early adopting consumers want more information about how food is grown on the farm. Consumers who participated in the research specified videos hosted by farmers would be highly useful and help build their confidence and trust in today’s farming.

The 146 videos currently on the channel feature 79 different farmers from 12 states and 16 commodity groups and were shot and produced during Farmers Feed US programs over the past three years.

“The ‘Meet America’s Farmers’ YouTube channel is a great opportunity for farmers to demonstrate that while farms come in all shapes and sizes, the commitment of farmers to growing safe, nutritious, affordable food responsibly is consistent from coast to coast,” says Charlie Arnot, CEO of the Center for Food Integrity.

“The goal is to feature a wide variety of farms and farmers, regardless of size, scale, location, product or production practices. Opening the digital barn door will help build public trust in agriculture.”

The videos will be merchandised through a promotional campaign to draw attention to the channel. The videos are also tagged with keywords so when consumers go online in search of information about today’s food system, these videos will show up in search results.

CFI has written guidelines to provide farmers with criteria for developing their own videos, which can be found on CFI’s Farmer Resource Center, and will furnish Flip cameras and support to individual farmers interested in shooting their own videos.

Those interested in more information about how they can contribute to the “Meet America’s Farmers” YouTube channel can This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Mark Crouser.  PD

—From The Center for Food Integrity news release