USSEC’s Farm Moms to China program made its third trip to that country December 14-18.
USSEC, working as part of the International Soy Growers Alliance (ISGA), sent a team that included United Soybean Board (USB) director Nancy Kavazanjian, CommonGround volunteer Dawn Scheier, and Pilu Giraudo of Argentina. The team, which represents farm women and moms, attended the meetings in Beijing, accompanied by USSEC Communications Manager Lisa (Pine) Humphreys.
USSEC’s Farm Moms to China program is one of USSEC’s tactics to help build confidence in the safety and importance of biotechnology while highlighting how this technology can enhance sustainable food security.
In September 2014, USSEC sent four female agriculture representatives to China to forge connections with Chinese moms about the safety of GMO soybeans. The second USSEC delegation visited China from February 2-5, 2015 to participate in another series of meetings with their Chinese counterparts.
The goal of this program is to head off any misinformation that appears in the Chinese press and social media by reaching out directly to Chinese consumers to share scientific facts and build confidence.
“This mission provided exposure to over seven million people through Chinese social media,” said Ms. Humphreys. “It is absolutely critical for the U.S. Soy industry to educate Chinese buyers and consumers in its top export market, and the Farm Moms to China program allows us to do that.”
On this visit, the USSEC/ISGA team met with Chinese social media key opinion leaders (KOLs) to discuss the safety of biotechnology; organized a town hall meeting with a science-based online platform to discuss the safety of biotechnology; and created video footage from the town hall meeting that will be used on the Chinese language ISGA website.
The mission is expected to help generate hundreds of thousands of website views sending a positive message of the safety of biotechnology with the ability to leverage those views and demonstrate to Chinese government officials the commitment of the ISGA soybean growers to support their efforts to communicate the safety of biotechnology to the Chinese public.