Videos are going viral on TikTok claiming that farmers across the country are getting paid by the government to destroy their crops. If you haven’t seen any of the videos yet, here’s one of the many out there.
Food shortage videos
Posted by Scott Stephenson on Tuesday, August 17, 2021
The first lesson to learn about social media is that you shouldn’t believe everything you see. Agriculture Director Steve Wellman says the rumors of farmers getting paid to destroy crops are not true. “No, the Nebraska Department of Agriculture is not paying farmers to take out their corn, or any other crops and neither is the United States Department of Agriculture.”
Wellman added that he’s confused as to why people would post videos on TikTok with false claims about the government, especially claiming they’re hurting farmers. “There’s little to zero amount of truth in any of what I’ve seen. So, I don’t know why the information would be put out in that manner. I think it’s just a good reminder for us to not always believe what we see on social media, and farmers and ranchers have been working hard to build trusting relationships with consumers for quite some time and then videos of this type that contain scare tactics and false information are really counter to building that consumer competence and trust,” he said. “So, in the end, it’s not productive for agriculture and it’s surely not productive for the consumers.”
These videos have been getting millions of views and farmers, ranchers, and consumers are reaching out with concerns. “I’ve taken a few phone calls from Iowa, North Dakota, and others here in the office, we’re fielding phone calls from Illinois and some of Nebraska calls too. So, definitely, the social media is getting some attention, and unfortunately, it’s driving calls to the department from the consumers, worried about food supply and why we would be doing such things as destroying crops,” Wellman said. “But again, rest assured…USDA is not paying producers to destroy their crops.”
This is a great example of why it’s so important for farmers to be transparent on social media and present the facts to followers so they know exactly what’s going on, instead of viewers believing false videos such as this one.
“Well, I would encourage that, I’m certainly not going to tell somebody to engage on social media if that’s not what they want to do, right. But if they have an inclination to be active on social media, I think it’s always proper to state true facts and to contradict any falsehoods that they see on social media. I think that’s one of the things that agricultural producers can do to offset falsehoods while they’re in this case or in any other case on social media,” Wellman said. “I don’t believe that agriculture has anything to be ashamed of or how we conduct ourselves here in Nebraska or across the United States. We supply high-quality top-notch food for us here in the U.S. and around the world. So, we do things right, we are very productive, and we certainly need to stand up for our product.”
