June 2008 - Posts
Many thanks for the feedback to my last blog about serious versus frothy and fun content. One of the issues to come up was women. We certainly do take women in agriculture seriously whether it's as a husband and wife farming team or women supporting rural families in many other ways.
In the last week, we've been out and about judging the FW Awards and visiting the 2008 finalists on farms. The involvement of women in all aspects of these businesses is impressive, particularly in giving the men in their lives the courage to develop and grow the enterprise. Sorry guys, but it's often the women who are willing to take the risks, change the approach and who give their partners the confidence and ideas to move forward. In farming, we are good at analysing our navels but sometimes you do have to bite the bullet and give something new a go. And women in agriculture are really making a difference here not just with diversifcation but also with mainstream farming.
There are well over 600,000 businesses owned by women in the UK, generating something like £80bn a year for the UK economy and rural women are at the forefront of this trend. The NFU tell us that its female membership has grown substantially as has female representation on NFU councils and boards. The gender balance is also moving in favour of women on many agricultural and related courses and thank goodness for that. I have a feeling it was only in 1979 that women were admitted to the Royal Agricultural College - a sign of just how sexist the industry was.
Nowadays, the big opportunities for women right across the food chain as producers, retailers, processers and marketeers mean we're no longer invisible in rural business. Think of the leadership that groups like the WI has shown in driving initiatives like the Great Milk Debate. It was the WI women who forced Justin King of Sainsburys and others to wake up to the plight of dairy farmers. They used their collective power as consumers who care about agriculture to have their say and boy did all those ladies frighten the big cheeses in the supermarkets.
This older female audience has also been pretty vociferous with FW. Many of them have grown up with the magazine on the farm for generations and a few have been uncomfortable with the changes we have made. As you would expect, FW magazine has to appeal to a broad church and so different people have different views about the purpose of our popular Farmlife section. It really is intended to provide something lighter from the technical content for the whole family, which is why we cover rural matters, sport, leisure, children, students and wider family issues. It is true that some of our older female readers assume that Farmlife is entirely prepared for them because for years it had a long tradition of providing recipes and was very involved in the former Farm Womens Club. I've had some complaints from older female readers that we don't provide the same volume of content for them like we used to and I'm afraid that is correct. Nowadays Farmlife should be appealing to an eclectic group of readers with its mix of views, features, pictures and interactivity. For example, Farmlife regular agony uncle Farmer Frank is probably appreciated more by blokes because the jokes are so smutty but then I could be wrong. What do the ladies think of Farmer Frank?
It will be interesting to see who (male or female) is driving most of the traffic activity on our new online dating service Muddy Matches. I will keep you posted on that if we can get some stats.... and we've agreed to have a massive celebration for the first couple to get engaged after meeting through the service.
Entertainment value is becoming more important to business brands like Farmers Weekly but we have to get the balance right between the serious and the fun. On that note, have a good time this weekend.
The purpose of this blog is to bring magazine readers and web users closer to our products by explaining why we do what we do and encouraging discussion. So this week I thought I would tackle the thorny subject of different types of content and ask the question - are we getting the balance right between the serious content and the lighter fun material?
Every day the team grapples with this issue as we try to provide a comprehensive information service for a very broad community both in the magazine and online. Deciding priorities and agreeing where to put resource, can sometimes be tricky and it's extremely difficult pleasing everyone all of the time.
Our number one priority has always been to work hard for farming's future by providing serious news, views, advice, case studies and analysis. We strive to deliver practical information, technical know-how, solutions and comment. Some of it is suppllied daily through www.fwi.co.uk and some through the weekly (FW) and monthly magazines (Crops, Poultry World and the Update series).
When we asked thousands of farmers a couple of years ago what they expected from us, they told us that in addition to the serious stuff they also wanted our products to reflect the lighter side of life in agriculture. They want us to project a more positive image of farming and to include more younger faces. This is why our design, both in print and on line, embraces more pictures these days and why we have introduced new youthful columnists such as Heidi Colthrup, Matthew Naylor and Hugh Broom. You may also have spotted quite a lot of coverage from the YFC convention in Blackpool too. We call this "frothy and fun content" because it's really entertainment.
Some readers and users appreciate the lighter material. For example, we got phenomenal traffic on the website for picture galleries from the YFC convention (all those youngsters keen to see pix of themselves having a laugh). But it's true that we also get criticism from some quarters that the lighter content is too much and irrelevant for some. These people argue that if they wanted "lifestyle content" they would buy a consumer magazine instead.
Last week we launched a new online dating service. Thanks to a linkup with Muddy Matches, the rural dating portal, FWi can now offer its users the chance to search for the perfect partner or friend in the countryside. We know there is a need for this kind of service and we see it as helping to expand the appeal of our website to a wider audience.
Next week, the countryside's most famous agony uncle Farmer Frank will be holding a live surgery on www.fwi.co.uk on June 19 to deal with queries on everything from aggressive bulls ro unsightly boils. Frank is making a name for himself answering questions on country matters in his own inimitable, unhelpful and occasionally very rude way. We think occasionally adding some comedy value to the products is a good way to differentiate what we do from the competition and reach out to those who want more in addition to the strong news and technical information.
One reader has set up a Farmer Frank Appreciation Society on Facebook with more than 280 members. It can be tough getting the humour right. Tim Relf, our Farmlife editor, says: "We want Frank to be old fashioned, a bit grumpy and politically incorrect, but we certainly don't want to upset or offend people". For another example of lighter content, check out Tim's blog at www.fwi.co.uk/blogs/rural-life.
So over to you. What do you think? Are we getting the balance right? Could we do any of this differently and why?
I get let out occasionally and this morning had the rather lovely task of walking across a field from my home in the sunshine to attend the opening of the South of England Show in Ardingly, West Sussex. By 8.15am, I was tucking into a full English breakfast entirely produced by local farmers - it's a hard job but someone's got to do it......
It's often said that the regional and county shows aren't agricultural enough but the South of England Agricultural Society works extremely hard to retain its farming roots. The livestock show element is a major part of the three days and this year there is a particular emphasis on a new pig village where the focus will be on special breeds and issues for the pig sector.
The hearty breakfast was organised by A Taste of Sussex which supports local suppliers and encourages tourism businesses in the area to source and serve local food. There's a real momentum right across Sussex to develop and market better homegrown products. For example, Brighton based company We Love Local delivers truly local food directly from regional farmers to homes, retailers, htoels and restaurants.
I say truly local because there is increasing concern about the fraudulent claims by the hospitality industry that their food is locally produced when it isn't. Something has to be done to insist that those businesses using "local" as a marketing tool can actually prove the provenance. How much evidence is there that this a widespread problem? any ideas?
It's amazing we haven't all gone grey overnight. The team has worked incredibly hard over the last couple of weeks to prepare for the Cereals show at Heath Farm, Leadenham, Lincolnshire next Wednesday and Thursday.
We welcome feedback on the event supplement, produced in conjunction with Haymarket Exhibitions and accompanying last week's issue of FW. At 116 pages, it was a block buster to get out and still no rest for the wicked....... we are now planning live coverage online - so look out for news,pictures, forum discussion, videos on www.fwi.co.uk next Wednesday. Once again, it promises to be a pretty spectacular event.with something like 22,000 arable farmers and industry experts coming together so fingers crossed for fine weather and enjoy.
If you are attending Cereals, why not pop into the Farmers Weekly stand and say hello? I will be there on the Wednesday and look forward to meeting anyone who fancies a coffee and a chat.