SALEM — People learn through stories, Michele Payn, a nationally recognized speaker and author on the food industry, said. And as the stories around food change, the way people think about food is changing, too.

The changes are often pushing farmers and consumers farther apart, and Payn said farms need to do a better job of engaging the public.

Payn was speaking during an Oregon AgLink meeting Jan. 16 at the Northwest Ag Show to an audience that included hay farmers, cattle ranchers and tree fruit producers.

The way society’s perception of food is changing can be illustrated through brain science, said Payn.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a technique that measures brain activity. When certain areas of the brain light up in fMRI images, researchers can evaluate patterns of thought. When the brain finds a subject pleasant or comfortable, it lights up one area of the brain. When a subject is uncomfortable, another area is activated.

Payn said that as marketing messages have impressed on consumers values like “sustainability” and “humane livestock production,” for example, consumers’ brains have been wired to light up in a positive way when those terms are recognized.

Marketers know this and send messages through food labeling to impact consumers’ thoughts.

The average grocery store, said Payn, sells 40,000 products. And each food item has approximately five claims on the package. That means the store holds over 200,000 claims about food, leaving consumers’ brains spinning.

But most consumers, Payn said, have little concept of how their food is produced, why farmers use specific practices or chemicals and who works behind what’s on their plate.

Since many consumers view conventional farms — those that use GMOs or pesticides, for example — in a negative light, Payn said it’s critical for farms, especially traditional large-scale farms, to tell their stories, engage on social media, build relationships with customers and above all, find common ground. Only then, she said, can consumers and farmers understand each other’s practices.

Farms are far from homogenous, and conflicts exist between groups with different practices. Although competing for customers is part of the game, Payn said hostilities between farms undermine the overall way the public views agriculture.

“Farmers like to bully each other when they make different choices,” said Payn.

She recalled how a farmer she knows formerly grew only conventional crops, but when he switched part of his operation to organic, other local farmers ostracized him.

“This all comes down to choice,” said Payn. “People have the right to buy the kind of food they want to feed their families, and farms should be able to grow food the way they want.

“When trust is destroyed in one farm, it’s destroyed in the other. We can’t go around condemning each other. We have to build better relationships with the public and with each other.”