Most people aren’t farmers, easily scared by spin about GMOs, modern agriculture

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis.

Modern farming is remote. Though 96 percent of American farms are family owned or run, only 1 percent of Americans actually work on them.

But the success of farming science has come with a cultural price: Most people don’t know much about how food grows making it easy for urban elites and groups like Environmental Working Group and Whole Foods to scare the public with falsehoods about modern agriculture. Most of their donors have never worked on a farm.

Since farmers and scientists tend to be modest and quiet, the discourse about their work is instead framed by well-funded detractors. So when agenda-driven groups like Natural Resources Defense Council and Pew Charitable Trusts abused Freedom of Information Act requests to demand personal information on farmers so they could distribute this information to their political sympathizers, it got very little mainstream media attention.

Given the mindset of most journalists, and the complexity of science, it is easy to understand why journalists take the easy road and just repeat the scary narrative promoted so aggressively. And then there is the audience. Not many farmers read the New York Times and it’s the environmental groups buying the full-page ads.

“Science is on our side” is not very convincing to the public because science has been on the wrong side of things plenty of times. But food is more than a science issue, it is a values issue, because we can’t opt out of food. People who are concerned about modern agriculture are not simply anti-science, they just need a group to be trusted guides for complex issues.

Read full, original post: Values Argument: GMOs a Concern Since Farming is Remote

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