The response to our on-line contest "Why I Should Have a Cow Named after Me" was so overwhelming that The AgriNews is expanding the polling section in this month’s internet edition.
We’re asking four hot-button questions this month. Some are dealt with in the pages of this month’s edition but perhaps the most contentious, dealing with the agricultural industry’s response to consumer criticism of GMOs, is a nationwide issue and is something that farm organization leaders and the agricultural supply and support industries have yet to come to serious grips with.
We’re asking you to respond to the question,
Is the agricultural industry doing enough to convince consumers of the safety of GMOs?
What are your thoughts?
Is the horse already out the barn door? Is the genie out of the bottle? Does agriculture still have a chance to state its case? Or are farmer themselves convinced of the safety - and the extra paperwork - of GMOs.
With the annual convention of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture coming up next week, who do you think should head the province’s largest farm lobbying organization? We’ve run a story and Tom VanDusen has written his AgriGab this month on the topic so we’re asking,
Has Jack Wilkinson overstayed his welcome as a farm lobby leader?
The existence of Alfred College, the province’s only francophone agricultural college, is being threatened by provincial budget cuts. Is this another Montfort Hospital in the making?
There’s a front-pace story and an editorial in this month’s issue dealing with the topic so we’re asking,
Does Alfred College deserve continued support from the taxpayers of Ontario?
And finally, the Ontario government’s Farmfare program is back in the news and seems to be getting an endorsement from new ag minister Ernie Hardeman. So we’re asking,
Would you hire a welfare recipient to work on your farm under the Ontario government’s proposed Farmfare plan?
We’re sure Ernie’d like to know so we’ll forward the results to him.
Oh, and one other thing. Our poling section is designed in such a way that you can only vote once on each question, doing away with the attempts by some to overload results through multiple voting. Those who felt passionately enough about an issue in the past often submitted multiple votes, all of which were caught through a manual verification system. The system has been automated and will reject attempts from the address to vote more than once on each question.
New advertiser directory
The polling section isn’t the only addition to www.agrinewsinteractive.com this month.
Were also unveiling an advertising feature that businesses can access from their own desktops.
The AgriNews is now attracting about three thousand views per month and advertisers can reach this audience with this low-cost feature.
The agri-business directory is divided into three levels: bronze, silver and gold.
The bronze level is free to all advertisers in the current print edition of The AgriNews and the entry and system can be found on the web page.
You have to enter your information yourself and it will be verified by our webmaster. The listing will last for the current life of the edition and must be updated by the advertiser once it has expired.
Gold and silver level ads will rotate throughout the site to give advertisers maximum exposure. They will also permit advertisers to link their e-mail and website addresses to their ads.
Silver level ads will have a duration of six months.
Gold level ads will have a life of 12 months and will permit advertisers to put in their own logos or trademarks.
The work is done from your own computer through a simple form at www.agrinewsinteractive.com but if your are having trouble loading logos into the gold level, just contact us at rm@agrinewsinteractive.com and we’ll help you through it.
Prices for the ads are listed on the web page. All advertisers will also receive information on the system by mail.
From the Archives:
News, December 1999
