It’s all about attitude

Fresh produce markets and their agents face a multitude of challenges and it’s inevitable that comment on the market floor will be vociferous.

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Moreover, the ‘negativity brigade’ will always seem to be the loudest. But hidden among the horror stories – some true, some not – is always a thread of positivity. The problem is, the ‘positivity brigade’ have a much more difficult task when spreading their message. People listen but often slip back to holding their negative perceptions. Perhaps the positive stories are not as juicy as the negative ones; perhaps people simply like to feed off negativity. You only have to follow the news to hear all the negativity your heart desires. It’s a sad reflection on human nature.

Plenty of good news
There are numerous examples of positive things happening in the fresh produce sector. The negativity brigade will answer that statement by saying, “Yes, but what about…?” In contrast, the positivity brigade will say, “Tell me more.”

In a perfect world, we’d be able to wave a magic wand and everybody would become positive. Fortunately, reality is not like that. The opposing sides need each other to stimulate thinking and debate. This, in turn, ensures that thinking people – mostly the positive ones, I hope – soon separate the wheat from the chaff and move on to the issues that really matter.

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Thank goodness we have a positivity brigade, because they are the ones who get things done. They constantly have to endure ‘fire’ from those who are negative because positive things don’t feed the negativity fire. In fact, they douse it.

Uplifting our fresh produce markets
An example at present is the work being done by the Project Rebirth Steering Committee under the auspices of the department of agriculture. It has the Herculean task of uplifting our markets in numerous different ways. Behind the scenes, much hard work is being done by many individuals.

The negativity brigade cannot always see what is happening, though, so they feed on misconceptions for the sake of a
good story. You know the line: “Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.”

In the end, it’s all about attitude.