Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• For the first time in human history, the majority
  of people will have no contact with the source of
  their food.
• other than buying or eating it.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• We know this population shift has occurred in the
  United States since the end of World War II.
• It will soon be true across the globe.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• By 2050, the majority of the worlds population
  will be disconnected from the earth.
• In 1950, more than 75 percent of worlds
  population was rural.
• By 2050, almost 75 percent of worlds population
  will be urban.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• The average U.S. citizen is three or more
  generations removed from the farm.
• Food is taken for granted.
• Issue has no personal relevance.
• Sentimentality persists, but far less than in
  past.
• More questioning of farmers competency.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• The ignorant are very easily misled.
• We believe that we understand subjects that we do
  not.
• We fear the wrong things.
• We dont fear the right things.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• The U.S. public has many misconceptions about
  agriculture.
• Many we are taught!
• Others come from superficial reporting by media
  or through advertising.
• Once something is in print, it is repeated,
  endlessly, as factual.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• A lie can travel halfway across the planet in
  the time the truth is still putting on its
  trousers. Winston Churchill

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Malthus
• 1798 Prediction

1798
1998
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Activity
• Half with orange cards have questions.
• Go to left, line up sequentially.
• Half with green cards have answers.
• Go to right and wait for a moment.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Activity
• Fill in the blank by finding the missing word,
  words or letter.
• Once matched up, decide as a team if your
  completed sentence is a factual statement or a
  misconception that people have about agriculture.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 1. ? produce chocolate milk.

Brown cows
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture
No
No
Yes

• Who produces chocolate milk?

No
No
Yes
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture
No

• Who produces chocolate milk?

Yes
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 2. Vitamin ? is a steroid hormone.
• This is true!

D
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 3. All of the worlds major food crops are
  grown from ? .

seeds.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Three of the top 10 crops produced worldwide are
  produced using vegetative reproduction
  techniques.
• Sugar cane, potatoes and cassava
• Sweet potatoes are 13.
• Bananas, are one of the most widely traded
  fruits.
• Taro, yams are also significant food sources in
  certain regions.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 4. If it is ? , it is not harmful.
• This is not true.

natural,
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• We Dont Fear Mother Nature
• There are many naturally occurring toxins and
  carcinogens.
• Nicotine, opium, heroin, morphine, and cocaine
  all come from plant sources.
• Arsenic, radon, lead, and strychnine are all
  natural.
• Rattlesnakes are natural.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 5. The pesticide that caused eggshells of bald
  eagles to thin is ? .

DDT.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• This has never been scientifically proven!
• The Clean Water Act went into effect about the
  same time as the DDT ban.
• Stopped oil, lead and mercury pollution.
• Oil, lead and mercury are proven to cause
  eggshell thinning or embryo death.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Bald eagles were reported threatened with
  extinction by 1921 and vanished from New England
  by 1937.
• Bald Eagle Protection Act passed by Congress in
  1940.
• The first use of DDT was in 1943.
• In Italy
• 500 gallons was made and used in WWII to stop
  typhoid fever. Typhus was spread soldier to
  soldier by lice.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• DDT was not used in the United States until after
  WWII.
• DDT was banned in 1972, but the eagle was already
  bouncing back.
• Other accusations made against DDT?
• Also not true.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 6. Organic food production does not use
  ? or synthetic fertilizers.

pesticides
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Organic production can use natural pesticides.
• Mineral salts
• Pesticides from plant materials
• The largest quantity (total pounds) of chemical
  pesticides are being applied to organic crops as
  approved natural pesticides.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 7. Organic farming has less impact on the
  environment than ? .

traditional farming.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Many natural pesticides are persistent in the
  environment.
• Many need to be applied several times or at
  higher rates to protect the targeted crops.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 8. Natural pesticides are less toxic than
  ? .

synthetic pesticides.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Several natural pesticides are highly toxic,
  even carcinogenic.
• Copper sulfate is highly toxic and shown to cause
  liver disease.
• Rotenone may cause Parkinsons disease.
• Pyrethrin is a likely carcinogen.

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  Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 9. The only sustainable form of food production
  is ? .

organic.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Does Sustainable Organic?
• Many natural pesticides used by organic producers
  are persistent in the environment.
• If we were to convert to totally organic food
  production
• Yield would decline by 30 to 40
• increased competition from weeds, insects,
  diseases.
• Post-harvest losses would increase.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• To produce necessary nitrogen
• we would either need to convert one-third of all
  crop acreage into green manure production
• or
• increase the number of cattle on the planet by
  700 percent.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 10. To protect children from cancer, use
  ? to make their peanut
  butter and jelly sandwiches.

organic peanut butter
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Facts about peanuts
• Peanuts grow in the ground.
• Soil naturally contains many fungi.
• Some of those fungi produce aflatoxins.
• Aflatoxins are known and very potent carcinogens.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Growers use fungicides on peanuts produced
  traditionally.
• Fewer fungi mean that less aflatoxin is found in
  commercial peanut butter.
• Organic peanut butter is often contaminated with
  aflatoxins.
• So, traditional peanut butter has less potential
  for aflatoxin contamination.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 11. ? use the greatest
  concentration of chemical pesticides per acre.

Homeowners
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• The EPA found that homeowners applied chemical
  pesticides at a rate eight times per acre higher
  than did farmers.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 12. Farmers have higher than average rates of
  ? because they apply synthetic
  pesticides.

cancer
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• As a whole, farmers do not have higher rates of
  cancer.
• There are a couple of specific cancers that are
  problems, none related to pesticides.
• Farmers have higher rates of skin cancer, but
  this is due to sun exposure and not pesticides.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 13. ? are now known to
  cause about 20 percent of all cancers.

Microorganisms
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites are known
  to be carcinogens.
• Viral carcinogens
• HTLV-1
• Human Papiloma Virus
• Herpes 8
• Epstein-Barr
• HIV
• Hepatitis B Virus, Hepatitis C Virus

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Bacterial carcinogens
• Helicobacter pylori
• Chlamydia trachomatis
• Fungal carcinogens
• Aflatoxin
• Parasitic carcinogens
• Worms Opisthorchis viverrini and Clonorchis
  sineniensis
• Schistosoma haematobium

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  Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 14. Producing ? is unwise. It takes
  more energy to produce than it yields.

ethanol
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• For every kilocalorie expended to produce
  ethanol, 1.67 kilocalories are produced. That
  is a net gain.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 15. Brown eggs are more nutritious than
  ? .

white eggs.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• There is no nutritional difference between white
  and brown eggs.
• Different breeds produce brown, white or blue
  eggs.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 16. ? causes all soil
  erosion.

Human activity
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Soil erosion is a natural phenomenon and occurs
  whether or not humans are present.
• Human activity can and does increase or decrease
  soil erosion.
• The activity of other animals does as well.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 17. More ? is directly consumed by
  humans than any other grain.

wheat
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Wheat is the grain most widely consumed directly
  by humans.
• This is true even in China.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 18. Globally, the primary use of ? is
  fuel to meet human needs.

wood
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Wood energy is the dominant source of energy for
  more than two billion people.
• 60 percent of the worlds total wood removal is
  used for energy purposes, firewood, charcoal, and
  biofuels for commercial use.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 19. Globally, hunger is caused by a shortage of
  ? .

food.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• The world produces enough food to feed everyone.
• Even Africa produces enough food to feed its
  people.
• Hunger is caused by poverty
• in this country and elsewhere.
• Hunger may also be intentional.
• It may be induced for political or social
  reasons.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Poverty results in the inability to
• purchase food
• safely store food or
• transport food in areas where drought occurs.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 20. The world can support more
  ? than meat eaters.

vegetarians
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• The Worlds Land (million Km2)

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 21. It takes ? to
  produce one pound of beef.

16 pounds of grain
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 16 lbs grain 1 lb beef?
• 8 lbs of grain to produce 1 lb of gain
• 50 percent cut-out of live carcass
• These two assumptions factually true, but used
  incorrectly.
• Simple arithmetic yielded the 161 grain to meat
  ratio.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Assumption
• Beef animals are consuming human-edible grain
  from birth.
• Mammals - from birth to weaning consume milk
• Calf is weaned at 6 to 8 months of age weighing
  about 600 pounds.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Assumptions
• Beef animals consume nothing other than grain.
• 100 percent of this grain is human edible.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Diet of Cattle
• Cattle graze and eat forages that humans cannot
  digest due to the fiber content.
• Much of the grain milling and food processing
  waste is turned into feeds that cattle can eat
  and convert into high quality protein.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Milling and Food Processing Waste
• For every 100 pounds of human food produced by
  processing crops, 37 pounds of waste products are
  produced.
• These waste products can be turned into animal
  feed or will enter the waste stream to be
  disposed.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Food Processing Product Examples in Cattle Diets
• oat hulls almond hulls
• carrot waste brewers grains
• distillers grain cottonseed meal
• soybean oil meal corn middens
• wheat bran rice bran meal
• apple pomace tomato pomace
• beet pulp citrus pulp

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Diet of Cattle
• 50 70 percent of a beef animals feedlot diet
  is human-inedible forages and feed.
• In U.S., 2.6 pounds of grain are used to produce
  1 pound of beef.
• Globally, 0.3 pound of grain is used to produce 1
  pound of beef.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 22. Eating beef is the reason that ?
  in the atmosphere has tripled in the past 100
  years.

methane
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• While cattle and other ruminants belch methane,
  they are not the leading methane producers.
• Energy Production
• Landfills
• Wetlands and Swamps
• Anaerobic Septic Tanks

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 23. ? is out of control.
  If graphed, it resembles a J curve.
• Human population growth

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Human population growth has slowed considerably.
• What is depicted as a J curve is actually only
  part ofan S curve.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 24. As hog production in North Carolina grew
  five times, water quality declined.
  ? is the cause of that decline.

Hog manure
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Long-term studies show no greater impact than the
  traditional types of agriculture that were
  conducted decades before 1990.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Far greater concentrations of nutrients,
  sediments, and metals are flowing from point and
  non-point sources
• Greenville, Durham and Fayetteville, NC.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 25. We are losing family farms because large,
  ? farms are taking over U.S.
  agriculture.

corporate
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Farm Ownership

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 26. Large, corporate farms now produce
  ? of our food.

half
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Farm Production

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 27. The USDA has one employee for every U.S.
  ? .

farmer.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Most people believe that the USDA is about
  helping farmers.
• Not so.
• Much more focused on consumers.
• 60 percent of the USDA budget is for social
  programs.
• Food and nutrition programs. (WIC, Food Stamps,
  nutrition education, food safety, food aid,
  etc.)

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• There are 2.13 million farms and about 109,832
  USDA employees.
• The majority of USDA employees work for the
  Forest Service to manage 192 million acres of
  National Forest.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Less than one-half of one percent of the
  United States ? is spent
  on farm programs.
• This is true!

federal budget
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Half of all farm acreage in the United States
  is used to produce ? for livestock.

feed
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Less than 18 percent of the harvested cropland in
  the United States produces animal feed.
• Not all of that feed is human edible
• Silage
• Hay

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 30. The amount of water needed to produce a
  1,200 pound steer could float a ?
  .

naval destroyer.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• According to the U.S. Navy, it takes 8,000 metric
  tons of seawater to float a destroyer, or roughly
  2.11 million gallons.
• It takes less than 10 percent of that to produce
  a 1,200 pound steer.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 31. Agriculture is an industry essential to
  ? .

homeland security.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Absolutely!

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 32. Fresh, raw vegetables are
  ? than those
  cooked, canned or frozen.

healthier and more nutritious
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• It Varies

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  Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 33. Overuse of the herbicide ? caused
  frogs in Minnesota to mutate and develop
  three legs.

Atrazine
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Researchers found that a parasite caused the
  mutation.
• In other peer-reviewed studies, scientists have
  not found any connection between agriculture and
  mutated frogs.

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  Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 34. Only genetically modified tomatoes have
  ? . Ordinary tomatoes do not.

genes.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Living or once-living things contain genes
  whether they are genetically modified or not.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• How accurately did people answer?
• Canada 52
• Netherlands 51
• Switzerland 48
• Sweden 46
• United States 45

• United Kingdom 40
• Germany 36
• Italy 35
• Austria 34
• France 32

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  Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• 35. A persons genes can be changed by eating a
  ? fruit or
  vegetable.

genetically modified
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• No.
• If you eat corn, do you become corn?
• Do your children become corn?
• No, your body digests the proteins and absorbs
  the amino acids to use them to build proteins.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• How accurately did people answer?
• Netherlands 74
• Canada 62
• Sweden 62
• United States 61
• Switzerland 60

• Italy 58
• United Kingdom 55
• France 52
• Germany 38
• Austria 29

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Population
• By 2050, population will climb from current 6
  billion to about 11 billion people
• We will need to feed twice todays population.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• We will need to produce as much food in the next
  40 years as has been produced in all of human
  history!

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• To accomplish this, we need
• a public that understands the food and fiber
  system.
• to make decisions using researchbased
  information, not rumor, innuendo nor the rhetoric
  of the self-serving.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Why?
• To ensure abundance.
• Civilization is dependent on the ability to
  provide food, clothing and shelter in abundance.

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in
  a state of civilization, it expects what never
  was and what never will be.
• Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1836

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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture

• Developed By
• Betty WolanykDirector, Education and Research
• Produced and Distributed By
• American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture
• 600 Maryland Avenue, SW, Suite 1000W
• Washington, DC 20024
• www.ageducate.org