FARMERS COULD USE SOME HELP — FROM BEYONCÉ
Science not working right now to get truth out about food sector, Toban Dyck writes.
For a world that has largely forsaken religion in favour of science, to base its attitudes toward food on nothing more than belief and feeling is something that should make us uncomfortable and embarrassed. This is what seems to be happening. It’s alarming.
It changes things for me as a writer. No longer is a column about food and agriculture about demonstrating truth — perhaps it never was. Instead, it’s now about staging an attractive argument, like a house that you can picture yourself living in.
According to a peer-reviewed study published in the in the journal Nature Human Behaviour and reported on by NPR, those in opposition to genetically modified foods believe they’re savvy when it comes to food science, but, actually, are far from it.
Four universities surveyed 2,000 people in Europe and the United States, getting their opinion on GMOs. Then, it asked of its respondents a series of questions, some of which were as basic as is the Earth’s core hot or cold.
The stronger the opposition to GMOs, the lower the test scores, overall.
The agricultural community has been pushing science on consumers, matching vitriol towards the sector with facts showing that hate or distrust to be founded on nothing more than a gut reaction.
This has had little effect. And this goes both ways.
Science that calls into question our practices and our belief systems, whether it relates to religion or our soil tillage habits, is easily dismissed as tainted by bias.
What’s left when science is no longer king? What takes the throne?
It should be difficult for anyone to admit that science isn’t what is guiding his or her food choices. It would seem foolish to say out loud or even in private that the foods one chooses to ingest, purchase or support are decided by faith.
Is story and anecdote filling the void left by our lack of confidence in scientific rigour?
It’s decidedly human to want to be entertained. And it appears that is what is happening.
As a farmer wanting to show a side of farming that is honest and accessible, I need to entertain and dazzle and otherwise make cool or en vogue a vocation that is driven by agronomy, i.e., science.
Historically, farmers have not felt the need to share stories of their operations to the public. There hasn’t been a demand from consumers. A generation ago, storytelling or communication in general was not a skill regularly attributed to the greater farming community. That is changing. It has to.
Perhaps our silence over the years has allowed for those without knowledge of agriculture in Canada to tell stories and spread information that was never theirs to tell or share. I believe this.
The left arm now wants to know what the right is doing. And in this case, they’re not used to talking to each other.
Farmers now are faced with caring about something new. They are paying attention to what they say on Twitter. They are sharing with others the stories behind the settlement of their operations and they are starting to take seriously how what they put out in the world is being perceived.
This takes time and it’s hard work. Good communication is not something learned overnight. The next generation of farmers will grow up in an environment that expects that of them.
But for now, we’re faced with a consumer base that has ousted science in favour of something much more nebulous. We may not want to admit it, and it may not sit well with us, but a Beyoncé endorsement of GMOs would go a lot further than science.