Alba PR, creator of The Farmer’s Survival Guide: How to Communicate with 21^st Century Consumers, uses psychological science to help farmers have better farm to consumer conversations.

Our advice is based on the principle of “brain-to-brain” communication.

All human brains are designed the same way. It doesn’t matter what country you come from or what ethnicity you are, all our brains have the same basic anatomy and functions. Think of it like a tractor engine: all diesel engines have the same components and are designed to work the same way. Once you understand how one works, you can easily understand them all, no matter the brand.

This similarity in our brain functions turns out to be a great asset when it comes to communicating, because once you understand how one brain receives, processes, stores, and retrieves information, you understand how they all do.

If you understand how the brain works then you can proactively create messages that will intrigue and resonate with your reader/listener, and nurture that delicate and critical farm to consumer relationship.

Brain-to-brain communications takes the ag industry’s much-touted idea of building trust with consumers back a step to a crucial, foundational level. After all, you can’t build trust unless you know how the brain measures that value – which brings us to the basics of brain function and science.

The Farmer’s Survival Guide (FSG) is where you can find information on topics like:

• How cognitive biases and mental shortcuts can hinder or help your messages
• Why facts and reasoning won’t always sell your Canadian ag messages
• How the Curse of Knowledge undermines your farm to consumer convos
• What are “teachable moments” and how you can create them
• How to fight misinformation in a world of information
• How to respond to questions you don’t want to answer
• What to do when conversations get tough

…and so much more!

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Pssst: Are you a Canadian farm woman? We’ve got resources just for you over at The Farmer’s Survival Guide for Women. You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram or check out the blogs here.

About the author:

Alba PR’s owner, April Stewart, is a sixth generation Québec dairy farmer who thinks going barefoot is highly underrated. A two-time graduate of McGill University in Farm Management & Technology and Public Relations, she is currently pursuing her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology at Queens University.

She is a columnist for the Country Guide, recently retired President and Communications Chair of Canadian Young Speakers for Agriculture, and past Executive Director of Agriculture in the Classroom Québec.

Among the many projects April has had the pleasure of developing, Farmers Matter, an 800+ attendee town hall in Perth, Ontario, in 2010, and the People’s Food Policy, a grassroots initiative that mobilized approximately 3,500 people across Canada to develop a food sovereignty policy for Canada (presented on Parliament Hill in 2011), were two of the most exciting. She also enjoys her part-time role as a seed sales rep since it allows her to mine the minds of the people who make the world go round: Canada’s farmers.

But the best gig she’s got going is being mom to one firecracker of a gal.

Follow us on Twitter: @FarmersSurvival 

Email April at april@albapr.ca