Can the Hip-Hop Cow Save France?

Image by Paul James

The french are trying to make farming cool.  It seems that young people in France have shied away from becoming farmers because of the intense back breaking labor that the job requires and the country’s unemplyment rate has risen to 21 percent.  Perhaps their new ad campaign can help save the economy by convincing young people to leave Paris and go work on farms.

Introducing “Farming: fashionable work” (“L’agriculture: des métiers à la mode”) a new ad campaign that features a hip-hop cow, a rocking sheep, and a shopaholic pig.  I’m sure the kids are gonna love it.

I love the french, but I’m afraid these marketing consultants may be a little off the mark.  Dressing cartoon farm animals in clothing and playing cool music can’t turn a generation of young people onto farming.  The truth is, the horrors of modern day farming are too much for the average person’s conscience to bare.  Pigs, cows, goats, sheep, and chickens do not go shopping or listen to hip-hop.  These animals are killed by the millions in the most brutal and bloody ways all across Europe and no amount of PR will convince anyone to WANT to be apart of that.

However, if young people want to start their own farm to harvest fruit and veg then I would encourage them to do that.  Perhaps advertising the benefits of organic produce farming would be more enticing then trying to make the work of raising animals for food look like something it’s not.