Food MythBusters Take on Big Ag's Worst Lies

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/food/food-mythbusters-take-big-ags-worst-lies



It’s a tired old refrain you’ve probably heard before: “Industrial agriculture is the only way to feed the world.” Even if you shop at your weekly farmers market, and love your local kale and carrots, maybe you also secretly worry: Are you cursing people to more hunger around the world for your organic proclivities?

Well, folks, the research is in. Study after study is showing the opposite is true: we can onlyensure a well-fed world if we start shifting away from an agricultural system dependent on fossil fuels, mined minerals, and lots of water—all of which will only get more costly as they run out. Some of the most esteemed global institutions have documented that the best way to fight hunger—and grow food abundantly—is to go for organic and ecological production methods andget people eating whole, real food again.

So if we have scientific consensus, why don’t we have more public consciousness? You can find the answer in the marketing budgets of Big Ag. Thanks to well-funded, multi-decade communications campaigns by the very corporations profiting from chemical agriculture, many of us are still in the dark about the true costs of industrial agriculture and the true potential of sustainable agriculture.

Thanks to these efforts, we are inundated with messaging that we need their products—chemicals, fertilizer, genetically engineered seeds—to ensure the world is fed. We hear it all the time.

[TreasonousBastard]

1. Good ol' Alternet...

once again mentions a whole buncha studies but not link one. Complains about the ad budgets of agribusiness, but points us to what is a commercial for... something...

I get it. I live in a town 75 miles from New York City that has traffic jams at the farm stands this time of year and has two farmers on the town board. I'm aware of the acres of good farmland wasted on corn for ethanol and subsidies to some of the richest farmers and agribusiness itself. I'm also aware of drought and that the Oglala aquifer will eventually dry up, possibly in my lifetime. The Peconic Baykeeper out here is talking himself hoarse about how nitrogen runoff is killing Long Island Sound, and we have an entire community with its water supply poisoned from a pesticide last used around 30 years ago.

And then there's Africa, Haiti, and other places with few resources to feed their people at the slightest upset in ag production while 2 billion Chinese suddenly have enough money to bid up food from everywhere on the planet.

I know about the efficiencies of vegetables over meat, and I understand the subtle arguments over all those potatoes going into Pringles.

So, movies playing to the converted are neat, but where is the argument that will be heard by the mob cleaning off the shelves in the local Waldbaums every weekend?

[Bluenorthwest]

2. The article at Alternet is about a film which addresses this issue...

the article is a promotional piece for the film, here is a link from the article linked in the OP, the article you said had ' not link one'. http://foodmyths.org/organizers/

The film is the 'source material'. Look for footnotes and details in the actual work, not in a promotional piece about the work. Again, the OP link is to an article about a film, which is about food issues, the article itself is not making assertions which need 'links' other than the link to see the fucking film it is promoting.
If you fear the film will not be seen by the right audience, the links provided will show you how to actually organize and host screenings of the film. Those links, by the way, are in the article which you said had 'not link one'.
The arguments made by the filmmakes will be in the film, not in the promotions of that film. Seems painfully obvious to me as that this is always the case. They did not write an article about it, they made a film about it, then Alternet wrote an article about the film. The article, again, is not the film. It is an article about the film.

[TreasonousBastard]

7. This is true, but...

there is an assumption (a good one in the case of Alternet) that everyone knows the background. There also seems to be no film at the moment-- it's coming at the end of the month. Maybe.

Once again-- here I am in the middle of truck farm country and I have no answer to anyone should they ask why they should see this film, whatever it ends up being. Nobody here, especially among our farmers, has any love for agribusiness, but something has to excite them to do something, even just watch a movie.

(FWIW, been though the same thing here with plastic bags, helicopter flyovers, cesspool leaching, dark skies and few other things-- great stuff, if anyone would show up.)

[niyad]

3. k and r

[Hydra]

4. Ironically, the biggest stumbling block?

Labor. People don't want to pay people to work.

Well, we have 3 choices:
We can pay people to work
We can automate in a green fashion and let people enjoy the abundance without working
or
We can automate, not share the bounty, not put people to work...and a large number of people can starve out

[bhikkhu]

5. Which translates to cost

...so I don't have any complaint about the statements of the article itself, but the inevitable will be a long-term increase in farm labor, and a long-term increase in food costs per-person.

Its as simple as realizing that cheap fuel replaced the majority of human agricultural labor over the last century, and that the end of cheap fuel will reverse the trend. Our descendants will have different lives, but its very possible that they will look back on the wealth, ease and abundance we enjoy with some fondness.

But, again, as the article says, change is inevitable and one may as well embrace its better aspects.

[Hydra]

6. Cost shouldn't be an issue

As long as everyone can afford it. The problem in the last 30 years is the wealth being sucked to the top, while the people who actually work have to make do on the same wages.

The wealth, ease and abundance could have been spread around, and we might have had a move back to organic before this...but some silly people got greedy, kept us on oil instead of renewable energy and sustainable crops, and suddenly we have a peak oil problem.

Assuming we don't all die out, I think a shift in our priorities and values will do wonders for our footprint on this world.

[Heywood J]

10. Who did they poll for that one?

I'd love to be spending only 9% of my unspoken-for income on food again, and I have a halfway-decent job. The last time I even checked, it was 15%. I'm sure it's higher now that everything's gone up.

[LiberalAndProud]

8. Ag ed teaches industrial agriculture.

That would be one place to start.

[jsmirman]

9. K&R