Abstract:

Why is the chemical industry interested in the image of farmers? Haven't they got enough to cope with their own image? Doesn't the chemical industry have a worse image than agriculture? These questions arise when a man from the agrochemical industry gives a talk about the 'image of Agriculture". There are however a series of good reasons why the agrochemical industry must be interested in the image of agriculture. The people who work in agriculture are our clients. In the interests of our business we must take the trouble of creating a realistic picture of our customers. Only satisfied customers buy products from their suppliers, respectively dissatisfied customers do not. We have advised people in agriculture and have influenced the structure of their production methods for over 100 years. It is therefore our moral duty to care about the acceptance problem of agriculture which we have partially caused. The last point mentioned here is the most important one: The agrochemical industry won't solve it's image problem if it only advertises for itself. It will only succeed if it helps agricultural production methods to be better accepted by the public.