Travelling the world to study how the best agricultural advocacy groups engage the grassroots, Nuffield scholar and south-west Victorian dairy farmer Daniel Meade discovered some things never go out of fashion.
"A strength for those (advocacy groups) who had strong engagement levels was face-to-face contact," Mr Meade told the Making Our Voices Heard forum in Melbourne last week.
"I think there can be an over-reliance on written communication, including social media, Twitter profiles, etc, etc."
He said the most successful at engagement made it easy for members to know how - in their local towns - to approach to air concerns.
"Decentralised representation was a strength in the places I visited," he said.
"That was not only your local representative that you had elected but also local paid field officers and territory managers.
"Farmers Union in Wales, for example, had about one officer per 230-odd members.
"With really strong representation there, they represented about 67 per cent of their demographic ... and that was voluntary membership."
To maintain a vibrant membership base, Mr Meade said agricultural bodies needed to recognise the proportion of farmers in communities was shrinking.
"Broadening the net of people who can join and support Australian farming and Australian agriculture will assist in spreading the positive word about agriculture and will also provide extra weight in advocacy when going to ministers, etc, to have that weight behind yourselves," he said.
"Not only the farmers but, as we all know, small rural towns survive on the cows and the sheep's back.
"If agriculture is struggling, the whole community will be struggling, which we're finding now in some parts of Australia.
"So why can't they contribute to our advocacy as well because it's directly beneficial to them?"
READ MORE: Watch Making Our Voices Heard on demand
READ MORE: Trust not structure vital says Simson
READ MORE: Total unity not realistic or necessary