Be honest - and don't try to answers questions you don't know the answers to.
Words of advice from Brent Royce to other farmers considering becoming advocates for their industry.
Royce is the Listowel-area farmer recently named Farm & Food Care Ontario's Champion for his advocacy work.
He says he believes promoting the industry and communicating about it is as important on some days as the production and financial end of the business.
He points out farmers are the ones with the passion, the ones who do it all the time, the ones who have the real stories about agriculture.
That's why he argues it's farmers who should be the ones telling their own story.
While Royce admits not all the response he gets is positive, he says he can take one positive response to ten negative ones.
He also believes there are a lot of people out there listening but not responding.
Royce is optimistic many of those are learning something from what he's saying that will help them better understand farmers and the agriculture industry that feeds them.
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Royce says he managed to overlook his concern about being a potential lightning rod in agricultural conversations.
[audio mp3="http://blackburnnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/ROYCE-Advocate-1.mp3"][/audio]
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Royce argues it's important farmers tell non-farmers their story so consumers, industry and government understand what agriculture is all about.
[audio mp3="http://blackburnnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/ROYCE-Advocate-2.mp3"][/audio]
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Royce says he can take one positive response for every ten negative ones he may get.
[audio mp3="http://blackburnnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/ROYCE-Advocate-3.mp3"][/audio]
