Well-Fed Ag Critics Continue Attacks

Critics of American Agriculture Intensify Efforts

Written by Stewart Truelsen　
Thursday, 08 October 2009 11:04

This has been a good year for the critics of mainstream farming and ranching. Time magazine ran a cover story at the end of August sharply critical of modern farm production methods and the nation’s food supply. It said "food is increasingly bad for us, even dangerous" and blamed obesity on American agriculture.

The president of the American Farm Bureau Federation was once on the cover of Time when that was considered a huge honor. Now, the magazine is a shadow of its former self in readership, editorial content and influence, but the recent story was a slap in the face to farmers and ranchers nevertheless.

The University of Wisconsin chose Michael Pollan’s book, In Defense of Food, to be given to all incoming freshmen this fall and incorporated into more than 60 courses from engineering to art. Pollan is a journalism professor from the University of California at Berkeley. His writing is critical of modern agriculture, food science and technology and the Western diet, including meat products.　　　

Wisconsin Farm Bureau President Bill Bruins, a dairy farmer, called Pollan’s book "a direct attack on the way we farm today." The university claimed it was not endorsing Pollan’s views in choosing the controversial book.　

A woman in the audience told a reporter, "Unfortunately, if we don’t show up and show our side, many of his claims will become truth." She is right about that. Mainstream farming and ranching are under an intensifying attack by critics who believe they can find a gullible audience. Read More

If you don’t think that agriculture is under constant attack in this country, then this article does a nice job of showing the play by play from just the last few weeks. When you reflect back over all of these events, you have to ask yourself what the end goal is. The only logical conclusion that you can come up with is that there is a segment of our society that wants production agriculture eliminated. Of course along with that plan, they also expect food to continue magically appearing in the grocery store. Good luck with that.