Gut Feeling

 We’ve all heard it. We’ve all probably said it. “I’ve just got a gut feeling about this.” People use the term “gut feeling” when referring to something they feel is instinctual or intuitive. Think back to a recent time when you experienced a gut feeling. Now dig a bit deeper. Was that feeling based upon past experience? More often than not, this is the case.

Let’s take this analogy into the agricultural realm. I often hear my mom say, “That cow is sick.” When asked how she knows, because to the casual observer that cow looks fine, she’ll reply, “I’ve just got a feeling. Take her to the hospital pen.”

After closer scrutiny and maybe a couple tests, nine times out of ten my mom is right. She’s right because she’s been caring for cows for more than 30 years, and knows when something is off. In other words, her gut feelings come from past experience.

Now consider an average consumer. Purchasing decisions today are made based upon emotion and feelings. Is the package pretty? Did Oprah give it five stars? Did the free range chicken have a name? What’s the latest social media post? The point is that the consumer’s top consideration is not the scientific studies that have proven it safe, or that it was produced using efficient production practices.

It’s how do you FEEL?

Marketing divisions have caught on to this trend, and no longer pitch to a higher nutritional value or greater digestive health. They promote how this product will make YOU feel. Buying this peach will make you FEEL like you’re in Grandma’s kitchen because it’s “locally grown”. Feeding your family that bread will make you FEEL like a better parent. This is a tough notion for agriculturists. Our business decisions are absolutely not made on emotions.

As food producers, we use science, technology, and hard evidence to guide what we do. Having to factor all this feeling-based marketing into our business planning is made harder by our feeling that our customers don’t have the experience to create gut feelings with sound reasoning and decision-making behind them.

So how do we influence these good folks (after all, they do buy our products) to FEEL good about one farmer being able to feed 155 people?

To FEEL good about lowering our collective carbon footprint through higher-tech equipment designed for precision application?

To FEEL good about using fewer pesticides, less water, and less tillage by implementing specially developed crops?

We as an agricultural industry are going to have to learn our consumers’ language. Just as the language of feelings is intimidating to us, our agricultural language is intimidating to those who buy our products. We need to find words to speak in terms that our customers understand.

This will help them FEEL we are doing the right thing by taking care of the land, our animals, and communities using what we know will work.It’s going to be uncomfortable at first. Not many of us in ag are predisposed to talking about feelings and emotions. But we have to do it, because we are past the time when different production systems can bash each other and expect to get away with it. We can’t ignore the way our consumers make their decisions if we want them to buy what we grow.

We need to learn that language if we want to continue to serve the people we feed today, and the people we must be prepared to feed tomorrow. It’s time to change the way we talk. Our consumers are our customers, and don’t we all know? The customer is always right.