It an established fact that American agriculture needs to do a better job of communicating with the non-farm public, but how to accomplish this is a matter of considerable debate. Lots of different techniques have been tried - from expensive PR campaigns to giving away free food.

I would like to suggest the ag industry try sponsoring a television reality show. They are inexpensive to produce and, judging from the number of them that are on the air, they are quite popular.
The show should have the goal of helping viewers understand what life is like on a farm and what farm families do every day. In order to accomplish this, the show would have to combine elements of the programs Lost, Survivor, Super Nanny, Dirty Jobs, Fear Factor, The Apprentice, Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader and The Simpsons.

It has been several decades since there was a farm-related show on TV. During the 1970s, American viewers followed the daily life experiences of a rural American family. The Waltons aired for 9 seasons and spawned several movies and reunion shows. Today, viewers demand a bit more excitement and drama. While most Americans don’t know it, excitement and cliff-hanging drama can be found on farms across this nation.

To be honest, The Simpsons is not really a reality show, but I felt I had to include it in my criteria because it has one of the few intact families on TV today. It has been my experience that the most successful farming operations have a strong family component. It is a fact that most farm operations today have been handed down from one generation to another. Besides, if we are truly honest, there is a little bit of The Simpsons in all of us.

Lost is a show that follows the lives of plane crash survivors on a mysterious tropical island, after a commercial passenger jet crashes while flying between Sydney, Australia, and Los Angeles, CA. Anyone who has been in the corn market recently can identify with the plane crash scenario. One episode of our series would follow a group of farmers trying to figure out where the price of corn was going and why.

The Super Nanny episode would not have any British accents or horribly ill-behaved children, but rather a herd of goats.
The show would follow a group of farm wives practicing their animal husbandry skills on a group of overly affectionate goats.
Viewers will see just how much hard work animal care is and how much skill and patience it takes to care for animals.

Dirty Jobs is a program that has featured on-farm jobs. But, in our program, we will focus on a variety of farm jobs that are down and dirty. This would include cleaning the barn, spreading manure, working with anhydrous ammonia, pulling a calf, castrating a hog, and artificial insemination. Unlike shows that focus on the gross-out factor, our program will focus on the reasons these jobs are done, why they are important, and the impact they have on the people performing them.

Fear Factor is a reality show that forced people to do all kinds of disgusting things. Our Fear Factor episode will focus on the truly dangerous jobs on a farm. It will feature farmers who have survived serious farm accidents as they describe what happened. There will be a reenactment of how fast you can be sucked down and suffocate in a grain bin, and an on-road accident involving a car and a piece of farm equipment.

The Apprentice is a reality show that has a bizarre group of young interns competing to get hired by Donald Trump.

On our program, we would put Donald in a pair of jeans and a seed corn cap and have hired hands compete for a job on the farm. Donald’s first job will be to determine which contestants are undocumented workers. He will most likely not be able to say his signature line “You’re fired!” because there will be so few people that apply (farm labor being in such short supply) that he will need to hire all of them to get the work done.

Finally, there will be our episode hosted by Jeff Foxworthy, host of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader. On this program, farmers will visit their county FSA office, and Jeff will quiz them about details of various FSA programs. Contestants will be given help from FSA employees who will have several chances to phone Washington to try and get the right answer. Winners will get a check from USDA which will be mailed 18 months after the show airs.

Some of you may be skeptical and say our show will not get the ratings to stay on the air. Let me remind you that one of the most popular games on Facebook is “Farmville.” In fact, more people play “Farmville” than use Twitter. City folks have a natural curiosity and interest in farm life. What we have to do is find a way to explain it to them that is accurate, entertaining, and does not smell bad. The Farm reality show may be just the answer.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Gary Truitt may write to him in care of this publication.