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AdvertisementTV fantasy is not scientific realityIf agriculture had remained a small organic enterprise for millions of families, it would be portrayed on television and movies as a cottage industry with determined but uneducated plodders putting in the crop and sitting in rocking chairs admiring the view as the sun set each evening. Today, with technology taking the lead and farms becoming high-tech operations, the industry is portrayed as corporate, unfeeling and scary. "You can't win!" might be the initial frustrated response to inaccurate portrayal of America's food production system, but it is the impact of media fantasy that has to be kept in perspective. The genesis (not genius) of this column is a recent television episode of CSI Miami that cast genetically modified corn as the villain. The writers took a false premise (that GM corn causes deadly botulism when fed to livestock) and added in a corporate executive who did not care if consumers lived or died. They neatly tied it into a one-hour drama that was watched by millions of Americans. The fear of agricultural interests is what message the viewers took away, from the program. We would hope that they took nothing but the satisfaction of an hour of suspended reality. However, in some, a seed of doubt may have been planted and, in others, a previous belief may have been reinforced. How do you counter this? You do so with a constant and consistent message of truth. Despite the efforts of anti-biotech activists, surveys of Americans' views of biotechnology show that most have no strong opinion about genetically modified crops. Following CSI Miami, some viewers may have searched for information on the Internet. They should have turned up answers from the National Corn Growers and biotechnology companies. But they also found "Frankenfood" sites which had claims as false as the premise of the CSI episode. The greatest hope for society is that people think for themselves and consider the sources on both sides: "The FDA says it has been tested and is safe" versus "This product is an ungodly mutation that fuels corporate greed and will kill you." That brings in the next element: emotion. Scientists are unemotional to the point you want to slap them to see if they are alive. In the news now is the new H1N1 flu which is showing greater virulence in children and pregnant women. A scientist who is an authority on the development of the vaccine was asked point blank: "Is this vaccine safe?" Two hundred words later, he infers that it is safe. The anti-vaccine activists scream that it will kill children and pregnant women. The outcome, here in Iowa, is families with children and pregnant spouses are lining up hours before the vaccine is to be administered, hoping to receive a dose of it. There is some pushback from military and healthcare workers but that appears to be because of the requirement that they must be vaccinated, rather than to the vaccine itself. Truth and trust should be parallel. It is impossible for everyone to know everything about our rapidly changing world. We have to have a regulatory system that is free of politics to assure us that new products are safe. We have to have a free media to let all views be aired to the interested public. We have to have the incentive of profit in industry to bring new technology forward. The balance of all three is very hard to maintain. Think about the number of unsubstantiated claims that you've been scared by: pesticides on cranberries, red dye number two, meltdown of Three Mile Island, DES cattle implants, Alar on apples, cell phones causing brain cancer, Starlink corn and Bst in milk. Have there been problems? Yes: DDT accumulates in top line carnivores and thalidomide causes birth defects. However, DDT remains a vital mosquito killer in emerging nations and thalidomide is a powerful cancer drug. I was told recently that technology has replaced Christ in our society. That's a strong statement that I challenge. Technology is the tool of the times that allows us to move ahead with the Christian goal of making this a better world for all. Christ is unconditional love, while technology is a highly conditional application of science for the greater good. Science and technology has to prove itself at every turn. If the product is safe, and the result satisfactory, it can return a profit to the maker and remain on the market; otherwise, it falls away. We are in a world that requires intelligence and engagement. Emotional messages get our attention but they need examination in the light of scientific facts before they are accepted. Editor's Note: This is Ken Root's 35th year as an agricultural reporter. He grew up on a small farm in central Oklahoma and started his career as a vocational agriculture teacher. He worked in Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri as a broadcaster and was the original host of AgriTalk. He has also been the executive director of the National AgriChemical Retailers Association in Washington, D.C. and the National Association of Farm Broadcasters in Kansas City. Ken is now the lead farm broadcaster at WHO and WMT Radio based in Des Moines, Iowa. He has been a columnist for HPJ and Midwest Ag Journal for eight years. Advertisement
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