Farmers defend way of life with Facebook, Twitter

When a video of dairy cows being punched and prodded with pitchforks was recently released by an animal rights group, it made the rounds on YouTube and generated the expected angry responses.

But it also raised a flurry of outrage from another corner of the Internet: Farmers fought back, blogging, tweeting, uploading their own videos and chatting on Facebook to defend their industry and explain that the abuse did not represent their practices.

Growers aren’t usually thought of as a wired, social-networking bunch. But frustration at being the targets of tech-wise environmental or animal rights groups has inspired them to get involved with social media and answer in kind.

Armed with smartphones that allow them to post status updates from a tractor seat, and increasingly comfortable issuing pithy one-liners on the short-messaging site Twitter, they’re going online to tell their own stories, connect to a public they feel doesn’t understand them, exchange information and break the isolation they feel on the farm.

By Juliana Barbassa

Full Story: http://www.mercurynews.com/business-headlines/ci_15431514