Tips for a Successful Workshop
Stay on schedule.
Invite your local regulators, state regulators, commissioner of agriculture, local representatives, Extension agents, congressmen, and senators. A Poultry Day is a terrific opportunity to be transparent and forthright in your community.
End your day with a community potluck and the sharing of chicken. In our community, the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society dovetailed into the Poultry Day by hosting a community potluck in the same evening. It was a wonderful time to come together in the dead of winter to gather and talk farming and cooking.
Workshop Topics
Consider mixing and matching your Poultry Day’s workshops from three subject areas: General Chicken, MPPT-Specific, and Home Cooking with Local Chicken.
General Chicken Workshop
Here’s a sampling of topics addressing general chicken care.
Choosing a Breed (Heritage or Cornish Rock Cross?)
Predation Prevention
Mobile Pasturing Pens (chicken tractors): plans, different styles, how to build, how to use reclaimed or recycled materials
Brooding your Chicks
Weather Extremes: Protecting your Flock
Marketing
Using Social Networks and Social Media
Composting Inedibles
MPPT-Specific Workshop
These topics cover aspects of the MPPT that interested farmers might want to know about, but they do not substitute for actual training (see chapter 4).
How to Prepare Your Farm for the MPPT
Overview of Regulatory Requirements a Farmer Must Meet to Sell His or Her Birds
Meet and Greet the Chicken Crew
Scheduling the Chicken Crew
“Home Cooking with Local Chicken” Workshop
Connect with a local chef, private chef, or home cook who is comfortable with public speaking while cooking. This individual should be able to share information and tips on how working with a local, whole chicken is different from cooking with a commodity chicken.
Decide with your presenter how best to show the differences. Here’s one scenario:
Have the following types of chicken on hand: a stew hen, a rooster, a commodity bird such as a Tyson or Perdue chicken, a heritage breed bird, a pastured cross.
Talk about the differences among the types.
Decipher the labels: natural, organic, free range, etc. (See pages 109–110 for more on label terminology).
Marketing
Selling a chicken, or anything you grow, is an opportunity to talk about how it was raised and how it was slaughtered. You’re given this moment to inform your customers, so they can learn what it took to get that bird from the field into their pot — from feeding the birds to protecting them from raccoons and hawks. From the days it was so hot you might have lost some to weather, to how and where they were slaughtered: overall, you describe what it feels like to raise an animal and then kill and eat it.
It’s also a chance to share with them what farming means to you, why you do what you do, what you value about it. And your eaters, let’s hope they vote, because if you need their help to mediate with zoning boards, or regulators, they’ll be by your side.
You have to be prepared, though, and lay the groundwork.
Develop a Spokesperson
Identify a person who can communicate the goals of your poultry program to your community and to the media. This spokesperson needs to know and be able to explain the reason for your program and its impact in succinct sentences that have a beginning, middle, and a period at the end. They should be consistently available to answer queries and write and send press releases.
Get to Know the Media
Knowing the media outlets and their deadlines will help when you need to announce events, fundraisers, and milestones. Even a seemingly benign event, such as the new availability of local chicken at a neighborhood restaurant or greengrocer, deserves recognition. A press release that is accompanied by a photo will usually get better placement and always be more effective.
You have the least control in the print media. Editors on deadline tend to cut from the bottom up. With radio, television, and video you’re not as vulnerable, but it is crucial to be clear, comfortable, and on point.
Get to know the food writers, bloggers, and journalists who cover areas such as agriculture, policy, food, and cooking. Tell them your story, and keep them posted as the chapters unfold.
And once you are awarded a USDA grant or loan, don your uniform (such as a pink Local Meat T-shirt), get out your camera, and snap those hand-shaking, contract-signing, check-accepting photos for your website and beyond. Manage all the while the message fundamentals of your program: safe, affordable, accessible, permitted, clean, size-appropriate, humane slaughter and processing of poultry and good food to feed your families.
Straight Talking
When you’re talking to customers or the media, use the language of slaughter and processing straight up. Vegetables are harvested; livestock are slaughtered. Processing is the transformative act that takes place after an edible animal has been slaughtered and turns it into a safe food. Butchery is the act that breaks down the raw meat into parts such as thighs, drumsticks, and breasts.
Animal welfare should be upheld at all times and emphasized when you speak, write, and communicate information about your poultry program and the MPPT. Humane slaughter is not an oxymoron. It is a mandate, an obligation. Inhumane slaughter is reckless and unacceptable.
Good Graphic Design
Labels, posters, recipe cards, information about your poultry program, anything that involves ink on paper — design it well. Good design and readable fonts make a huge difference. If your materials are difficult to read, illegible, hard to follow, or don’t suit the purpose or message you’re aiming for, you will lose your audience, and the important information you’re trying to convey will fade to black.
In this case, a look that is clean, clear, simple, and honest will eloquently communicate, in visual terms, the values of the poultry program and the MPPT. Good design is good communication.
Outreach
There are all kinds of ways to excite and ignite your community. For example, it’s important to highlight all the facts and figures on your side (see box, page 73). Impress your family, friends, and neighbors!
IGI’S MPPT: Facts and Figures for Year One, Licensed
IGI processed, on average, 80 birds per process, and the MPPT was used about two days a week in its first licensed year.
Licensed Producers (under the first year of license #417) and their number of processings: The GOOD Farm: 21
Morning Glory Farm: 8
Cleveland Farm: 4
The Whiting Farm: 3
North Tabor Farm: 4
Flat Point Farm: 1
Number of birds processed under IGI’s permit: 3,580
Estimated increase in grower revenue: $72,000
Approximate new farm wages created: $18,000
Estimated increase in grower profit: $39,000
Number of backyard growers: 13
Estimated number of backyard birds processed: 675
Estimated total number of birds processed: 3,580 licensed + 675 unlicensed (home use only) = 4,255
Who Knew There Was a Chicken Season?
Since we’ve devolved into a culture of disconnect from animal to meat and a society of instant-gratification, it may be surprising to an eater to learn that there is such a thing as a chicken season — just like the strawberry season, cherry season, artichoke season, and asparagus season. In our regional food system in New England, our fresh chicken season runs from about April to November. Because the farmers sell out of birds, if I don’t get a couple in my freezer by October or November there won’t be a chance to buy local chicken till spring.
This is one more way to educate your market — your eater. Let people know that there’s a season for chicken, depending on what part of the country you live in, how
small your operation is, and how it fits into your overall growing scene. This is a terrific chance to return authenticity and truth to marketing. Use it to your advantage over the “big guys.”
Building Community Understanding
Start a Sustainable Book Club. Infiltrate! If you’re in a book group already, suggest a title that explores industrial agriculture or a related topic, such as nutrition, food politics, history, or animal welfare. By opening up the dialogue about the poultry industry, you will garner support for chicken in your local or regional food chain.
If you’re not in a book club, encourage your local library to select a food-related topic. Or start a club! (Lead: www.oprah.com.)
For a list of various titles and topics specific to factory farming, animal welfare, food politics, cooking, butchering, and more, go to the book list in Resources.
Bring an inspiring speaker to your community. Use the forum to help educate the public about why local food and especially local meat are important.
Give your speaker a tour of farms in your area. Have him or her meet separately with farmers as well. When IGI hosted Joel Salatin to speak one cold November night, more than 300 people showed up. The next day he met with about 30 farmers so they could talk in a more intimate setting.
What’s a Chicken Tractor — and why?
A Chicken Tractor is a mobile coop, one you move regularly. A chicken tractor provides access to grass, bugs, stones, and weeds for the birds and offers shelter and safety from predators and the elements. A chicken tractor adds fertility to the soil. The chickens in the structure are integral to the tractor: as they scratch, beat down grasses, peck, and poop, they work the land under their movable structure. A chicken tractor is all of it: animals, wood, and wire.
Hold a film screening. Connect with a local independent cinema or film festival or host a house viewing. Or gather your group and watch one of the many talks recorded on video. TED Talks (short for Technology–Entertainment–Design; see www.ted.com) presents important, timely ideas in conferences and provides them for free in video form to the world. TEDxManhattan’s “Changing the Way We Eat” is an independently organized event, in this case focusing on sustainable food and farming. It has a website and a YouTube channel.
Create an e-mail newsletter. Some tips:
Write a clear and interesting subject line. For example, reiterate the name of your group and identify the theme of this edition of your newsletter: “CISA: Backyard Chickens and Zoning.” Or “Homegrown.org: Cook and Preserve.”
Or perhaps you’ve an action alert: “Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund: Fight GMOs & Support Local Meat Production in the Farm Bill.”
Include short informative news and narratives about the topics and events you are promoting. Keep the entries concise by providing a link for further reading.
Include a few images, but not too many. If you have more pictures to share, include a link to your website or a photo gallery or share them in an album on Facebook.
If you have many entries, add a Table of Contents at the top of your newsletter for easier navigation.
Be consistent in your delivery schedule. Whether you’re doing it once a month, every two weeks, or four times a year, keep to it, as people will come to expect it.
Archive your newsletters on your website.
Track your stats via your e-mail newsletter provider. Are people opening your e-mails? What time of day are you sending them and do you notice a higher or lower success rate accordingly?
Social Media: Mobile Technologies and Why Use Them
A cursory introduction into the world of social networking:
The Rolling Stones are on Twitter. Mick Jagger, Keef (that’s Keith Richards), Ronnie Wood: each has his official “@” except #charlieistoocoolfortwitter. The Boss tweets @springsteen, all lower case.
The Dalai Lama tweets. He has millions of followers and follows no one, as one would expect. The USDA is on Twitter in Spanish as well as English. Animal Welfare Approved tweets. Joel Salatin is a righteous tweeter. Wendell Berry may never tweet, but people tweet about him all the time. KFC, McDonald’s, and Taco Bell all tweet. Michael Pollan and Marion Nestle tweet; so does American Farm Bureau, and they probably follow both Mr. Pollan and Ms. Nestle to see what they’re up to next.
Whether you’re into it or not, social media is part of the media landscape. Best to learn about it and use it for good, not for evil. If you’re a farmer, advocate, or restaurant owner, social media can help you manage your message, get the word out about what you are doing, educate your audience, and increase awareness; and it can also backfire on you if you don’t use it well.
Today it’s all about Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest. These will run through their paces and in time others will emerge. Still, it’s unlikely that social media will ever go away, so it’s best to embrace them and use them to your benefit. Think of social media as another tool in your tool kit. Use these tools to your advantage. They’re usually free (no fees to sign up) but they do take time to manage.
Of course, the nature of the World Wide Web also means that anything you write, photograph, and post on Facebook or tweet into cyberspace will never go away, either. Consider that before you push Post or Share or Comment. Tip: Monitor your Facebook page for scams and spam (unwanted solicitations and/or inappropriate posts). Also monitor online discussions, to maintain respectful dialogue.
Reporters and journalists, calendar editors and community groups troll for information. Whenever you post a Poultry Day Workshop on a sustainable food group’s calendar, or list a fundraising dinner or a MPPT training, you are inviting media attention.
People love “behind the scenes” stories about farms. Share these with your local community through Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, and Instagram. Just be sure to read these links, news stories, and articles before you decide to post or retweet them.
Facebook
What started as a social network for college students has turned into an incredible communication tool for all types of organizations: libraries, schools, nonprofits, publications, and much more. Facebook is excellent because it crosses over into so many communities. It can help start a revolution!
On Facebook there are personal pages and there are fan pages. Be aware of this when you sign up. Keep your personal page for sharing photos with friends and family about your summer vacation and kids’ first day of school. Use your fan page to get out the word about your business or your nonprofit.
Post information on your Facebook fan page that is relative to your farm product — recipes, news about recalls, photos, farming grants, consultants, speakers, farmers’ markets, catalogs you like, and more. Also use Facebook to help promote educational opportunities for your constituency, such as upcoming webinars, conferences, or radio programs.
Examples
Here are some ways farmers, restaurants, food advocates, and eaters use social media to make their case.
Facebook Posts
In these examples, restaurants are promoting the local farm products they were using that day:
“Lunch Special: The GOOD Farm chicken liver, butternut squash, local pea shoots and bacon-onion jam on sourdough!!!!”
Posted by 7a–Martha’s Vineyard, a restaurant in West Tisbury, Massachusetts
“One Cow T-Bone Island Steak and Eggs over Island fingerlings & kale $15.95 Thanks Pilot Hill, Stannard & Blackwater Farms”
Posted by Scottish Bakehouse (see page 125)
Tweets
Here are examples of tweets between a farmer and a restaurant:
@follownathan Nathan A. Winters, a farmer in southern Vermont, tweets, “Hey y’all if you are looking to #FF a classy establishment that serves #realfood in #SoVT check out @thewilmington #VT #localfood”
He mentions The Wilmington, a restaurant that supports local farmers, which then tweets from its account:
@thewilmington “Picked up eggs for breakfast from Look and Lundsted farm. #realfood #ag #foodies
#wilmingtonvt #SoVT pic.twitter.com/lDH0uBu1”
The restaurant smartly attached a digital image of roaming hens.
Twitter
Like Facebook, Twitter is free. Sign up here: www.twitter.com, and watch a while before you jump in. You have only 140 characters (including spaces) to say what you want. As always, be careful out there. Post and tweet well and mindfully, as the Dalai Lama does. Like a linguist, learn the language of Twitter and how to use it most effectively.
Unlike Facebook, you need not be accepted as a “friend” by another. I find it useful for learning about news, articles, and commentaries posted by people I follow who are also working with food systems, slaughter, meat, and policy. Twitter is like a fast-moving river: a tumbling aggregation of selective information in specific areas.
YouTube: Broadcast Yourself
YouTube is another opportunity (or distraction, depending on how you look at it) to learn how to build a chicken tractor, compost inedible offal, or truss a bird for roasting. It’s also a place to upload videos about your work, whether you taped a speaker who came to your community or want to post a 3-minute video about your poultry program. Here’s where you direct customers or potential funders for your a nonprofit. And those YouTubes of Keith Richards’s guitar solo in “Gimme Shelter,” aren’t too bad either.
The Mobile Poultry Slaughterhouse Page 8
