TITLE:
GLIMPSE: Using Social Media to Identify the Barriers Facing Farmers’ Quest to Feed the World
AUTHORS:
Aidan J. Connolly, Luiz R. Sodre, Alexa D. Potocki
KEYWORDS:
Food, World, Sustainability, Agriculture, Agribusiness, Farming, Policy
JOURNAL NAME:
Social Networking,
Vol.5 No.4,
October
31,
2016
ABSTRACT: The ubiquitous nature of social media in today’s world offers unparalleled insights
into human thinking. When people write Facebook posts, blogs, Tweet, Instagram
and WeChat they allow their real feelings and reflections to be exhibited, unvarnished
and unfiltered. From this perspective the use of data analytical tools such as
Wordle word association mapping and other tools can truly show through frequency
of word used, word connections and consumer insights. The example of farming and
food production is instructive. Five years ago a new acronym GLIMPSE in IFAMR
was proposed to summarize the barriers faced by agriculture in its quest to feed the
world. This was based on a Delphi analysis of 25 expert interviews. In order to confirm
GLIMPSE, a larger research effort interviewed 57 experts, conducted an online
survey with almost 600 experts and for the first time ever in this sector algorithms
were applied to over 1.3 million qualified social media postings on the internet referring
to the challenge of feeding a growing world population. This allowed the comparison
to confirm the factors that most clearly depict the general public’s concerns
with respect to food production and agriculture. The value for policy makers is clear.
While international policy makers, governments, non-governmental organizations
(NGOs), charities, industry organizations, integrated food companies and farmers
often struggle to explain to the general population the challenges of increasing food
production of both large and small scale farming the social media analysis is unique
and original in its ability to confirm the GLIMPSE framework as a manner to encompass
the main challenges agriculture faces on its journey to feed over 9 billion
people by 2050.