Help voters be informed

I was talking with an acquaintance a few days ago when they brought up that they had just met someone else who works in agriculture and had been really fascinated by what they had to say about the industry. Especially as the topic of inputs and resource scarcity came up, they told me that they hadn’t really considered how those concepts impacted farms and food security. It was a great learning experience for them, and they came away from their party conversation with a new appreciation for what they were putting in their shopping cart.

That’s something to reflect on while you’re reading our cover story this month, diving into an interview with Tina Shields, Imperial Irrigation District Water department manager, about the importance and impact of the industry’s message about agriculture and irrigation. Whether you want others to or not, people have an understanding and assumption about how the food they eat gets to the grocery store shelves or to their tables. It’s informed by the information and messages they come across from day to day, even if those messages aren’t correct. Those assumptions affect how they interact with the world and also how they choose what to support with their votes, for example.

If they have a better understanding of how effectively you use your irrigation applications, they’re more likely to want to support legislation and candidates that aim to protect the work you do.

Knowing that consumers are going to make choices regardless of what you do, it’s better for them to be more informed about how important your work is for their daily lives. If they have a better understanding of how effectively you use your irrigation applications, they’re more likely to want to support legislation and candidates that aim to protect the work you do. Without that knowledge, they’re just going off of their assumptions, and that’s never going to provide the best basis for making a choice.

Sharing a message doesn’t have to mean talking about irrigation applications while you’re at the barbecue. It might just mean being involved in Smart Irrigation Month each summer or finding ways to brag about your water efficiency on social media. Any way you can give people outside the industry a way to interact with smart irrigation practices will improve the odds that they think about your needs the next time they’re at the ballot box.

One of the best ways to both improve your practices and get better connected to the industry is attending the Irrigation Show and Education Week in Long Beach, California, from Nov. 4-7. Not only will that bring you the education and industry insight you need, you’ll have hands-on time with some of the newest and best technologies on the market. Learn more at irrigationshow.org.

Irrigation Today Editor-in-Chief