COMMUNICATION IS AN important component to any successful business and the relationship America’s farmers and ranchers have with the consumers of the products they produce is no differ- ent. The agricultural landscape is made up of many different types of production, each vying to gain a larger market share through consumer marketing, and it is becoming increasingly more difficult for consumers to sort through the informa- tion that inundates their inboxes and social media feeds every second of every day. What is even harder is the task of farmers and ranchers to reach consumers with factual information. In a 2014 study by BASF, 2,100 farmers and 7,000 consumers, in seven coun- tries, were surveyed through a series of the same questions to determine their perception of agriculture. Over 90 per- cent of both farmers and consumers saw farmers as providers of food and a critical component of food security. However, farmers also saw themselves as stewards of the land, not only providing the food for a growing population; farmers sur- veyed were concerned with land use, soil protection, water use, fair farm wages and biodiversity protection and enhancement. This ongoing division between the agricultural producer and consumer has shaped perception of the industry, as a whole, and is influencing policy at the local, state and national level. The key to bridging the consumer per- ception gap: communication. Millennials are coming back to their family farms and arming themselves with new ways of communicating with their customers. Laura Handke laurahandke117@hotmail.com KEEPING UP WITH THE TIMES Millennial Communication Today nearly everyone has a smart phone, and on those smart phones is a menagerie of applications, each serving a different purpose, collecting data and influencing the communication climate of its user base. Pair this data overload with the impact of a world of social media that has allowed its users to be connected every moment of every day, and the net output is a generation of real-time communicators. Real-time communication and the hot-button conversations populating com- munication devices are changing conver- sations in agriculture. Today’s farmers are writing blogs, sharing photos of everyday life on Instagram, pro- ducing their own farm videos via Facebook Live and welcoming the public on their farms through live video tours. This outreach is creating a level transparency the industry has never seen before, and the value isn’t going unnoticed. Coming Home Melissa Hildebrand Reed’s story repre- sents much of what the industry is seeing with the millennial generation returning to the farm and the asset their integration can provide to an operation. An on-farm bottling operation started in 2008, Hildebrand Dairy is a family oper- ation in every sense of the word. A 150- cow Holstein herd provides the milk for the 5,000 gallons the family bottles and ships to locations throughout the state of 10 / SEEDWORLD.COM JANUARY 2018 Melissa Hildebrand Reed is one of the many millennials who leave home only to come back to the family farm, bringing with them updated social media and marketing skills.