Addy Rossi – Vice President
When I accepted the vice presidency of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ), I understood something essential: associations don’t live off the signatures on a charter or the dues their members pay. They live—and survive—through communication.
Communicating isn’t sending an email or filling out a newsletter. It’s listening, it’s creating space, it’s connecting. I see communication as the air that keeps the spark of this network that unites journalists from 66 countries on five continents alive. Without it, we become islands; with it, we are an archipelago connected by invisible bridges.
What impresses me most is how the same topic can have a thousand nuances depending on where in the world it’s being told. Corn in Mexico isn’t the same corn in Argentina. Poultry farming in Brazil doesn’t face the same challenges as it does in Colombia. And if we travel further, we see that cattle farming in Australia has nothing to do with intensive dairy farming in the Netherlands, or sheep production in New Zealand, or the agricultural innovations that are transforming South Africa. In Canada, for example, communication about agriculture often focuses on sustainability and traceability; in India, on the other hand, the urgent need is how to give a voice to millions of small producers.
But when we share these realities, we all learn and broaden our perspective. That’s the richness of belonging to a global federation: not in imposing a single narrative, but in weaving together diverse voices that recognize each other.
Of course, internal communication is also a challenge. It’s not just about exchanging messages, but about building trust. It’s about feeling that a colleague in Ghana speaks to me with the same closeness as one in Germany; that a journalist in Japan knows that her experience matters as much as that of someone in Uruguay. That trust is born from clarity and consistency: speaking on time, without beating around the bush, and without fear of admitting mistakes or differences.
The other side is outward communication. What’s the point of meeting if what we share doesn’t reach producers, consumers, or institutions? The world needs to understand that agriculture is not a marginal issue, but the heart of food security and a sustainable future. And that’s where our voice, as journalists, can make a difference: we don’t just describe reality, we also make it visible.
I like to think that at IFAJ, we’re not just colleagues sharing data. We’re storytellers who build a collective memory of the countryside and those who work it on every continent: from the wheat grown in Ukraine to the cocoa fermenting in the Ivory Coast, from family farms in the United States to the greenhouses of Spain. And in that sense, communication isn’t just a strategy: it’s commitment, it’s identity.
Personally, I believe we must nurture that flame. Make sure we speak, that we listen to each other, that no one is isolated. Because without communication, IFAJ dies in silence. With communication, however, IFAJ grows ever stronger and more global.
Adalberto Rossi, Vice President IFAJ