All too often these days farmers are writing in worried about commercial agriculture's negative public image. Increasingly, they complain, people who know only what they read in the national media believe modern agriculture ravages the environment, abuses animals and produces food that causes obesity and endangers public health. What, the farmers ask, can DTN do to tell the other side of the story?

DTN's editor in chief suggests farmers help civilians understand ag by letting them visit farms. (DTN file photo)

The problem, I typically respond, is we can't influence folks who live in cities and have no connection to agriculture. They don't read DTN and The Progressive Farmer. Our audience is you -- people who know the real story of farming, both the good and the bad.

And yet, pondering this dilemma further, I realize that while the farm media can't influence the general public's opinion, farmers can. Farmers have a persuasive, underused tool at their disposal -- their own farms. If farmers want to win the battle for hearts and minds, they should invite the public to come tour their operations.

Why do I think visiting farms would give city dwellers a more favorable view of agriculture? Because it's had that effect on me.

I'm a typical city boy; after all, my name is Urban. I grew up in Grand Rapids, Mich., (population 200,000), and live in Omaha, Neb., (population 400,000). In between I lived and worked in even bigger cities -- New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, Tokyo, Detroit, Brussels, Hong Kong. I read the New Yorker and the Economist, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post.

If all you knew about me was that, you might expect me to hold a simplistic and wholly unfavorable view of corn, soybean and livestock agriculture. I don't, and one big reason I don't is I visit farms.

I've witnessed the efforts of corn and bean growers to prevent runoff. I've toured large hog and dairy operations that use anaerobic digesters or otherwise manage manure carefully. I have seen, with my own eyes, commercial farms that respect animals and protect the environment.

Let others -- lots of others -- see what I've seen and they'll be more sympathetic, too.

Mike Beard and his son Dave are examples. The Beards run 33,000 hogs each year on their wean-to-finish operation in Frankfort, Ind. They've worked hard to make it a model of environmental good practices -- and in the process reduced odor to the point that only when you enter the hog barn do you know you're on a hog farm. The Beards are proud to give tours to groups of students, politicians and others. It's a chance, they say, to "tell agriculture's story."

Larkin Martin doesn't give many tours, but she does tell ag's story to large numbers of people. Martin farms several thousand acres of cotton, corn, soybeans and wheat in Courtland, Ala. She gives talks on the environmental benefits of precision agriculture and other environmentally friendly modern farming methods that are little understood by city dwellers. Her audiences have included the Birmingham, Ala., Rotary Club and several other civic and garden clubs. Too often, she thinks, farmers talk among themselves but not to outsiders. "It's up to us," she says, "to tell our story outside of our own group."

Can efforts like these, which touch a few dozen or hundred people at a time, turn the tide? Well, one small step followed by another and another and another is the way any large task gets done. And at some point, you get the snowball to the top of the hill and it rolls down the other side, getting bigger and gaining speed as it goes. The mainstream media, which has sympathized with agriculture's critics, will start covering the farm visits, exposing larger audiences to a more balanced message.

For a variety of reasons, from personal shyness to a love of privacy to fear of unintended consequences, some farmers will feel uncomfortable hosting visitors and playing the role of spokesman for agriculture. Fair enough. It only takes a few in each region to make a difference.

Seeing is believing. To feed the world's rapidly growing population, big commercial agriculture is essential, but it does take a toll on the environment. When people see all the things producers are doing to minimize that toll, when they hear from sincere, informed farmers how dedicated they are to producing nutritious food with minimal harm to the environment, their view will change.

It may take years, but so does any effort to move public opinion. The sooner farmers get started telling their own story, directly to the public, the better.