I recently ran across this Gallup poll result from the fall. The main result is that the industries viewed most positively by the public are all related to food. Survey respondents were asked, “for each of the following business sectors in the United States, please say whether your overall view of it is very positive, somewhat positive, neutral, somewhat negative or very negative. How about …”
Farming and agriculture were on top, with 69% being positive and only 11% being negative, yielding a net positive of 58%. The next highest industries were both related to food: grocery and restaurants. Moreover, farming and agriculture gained 11 points in positive rating from the last time the Gallup ran the survey in 2019.
Over the weekend, I tweeted out the figure below, and it got a lot of attention. Many farmers get frustrated by consumers lack of knowledge about farm practices and technology, and many actors in the food and agricultural sectors often feel beleaguered by criticisms aimed at the industry. These poll results seem to suggest that, on the whole, food and farming are viewed quite positively. While there are certainly topics where consumer education and engagement will be useful, there seems little reason to have an overall defensive stance, and rather the results suggest a fair amount of social capital is built up that could be leveraged for the industries to take a leadership role.
