MythBusting the Biggest Lies of Big Agriculture

Study after study is show­ing the oppo­site is true: we can only ensure 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 and get 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.

We hear the grain trader, ADM, is super­mar­ket to the world—while the company’s price-fixing scan­dals were so out­ra­geous they became fod­der for a Matt Damon, Hollywood film.

We hear Monsanto is going to “squeeze more food from a raindrop”—that its genet­i­cally engi­neered crops will help farm­ers deal with extreme drought—even though no genet­i­cally engi­neered drought-tolerant seeds have been commercialized.

We hear phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal behe­moth, Bayer, is “help­ing to feed a hun­gry planet” while at the same time it’s one of the biggest dis­trib­u­tors of antibi­otics to the live­stock indus­try, lead­ing to a pub­lic health cri­sis of antibi­otic resis­tance. And it’s the maker of a toxic pes­ti­cide, now cov­er­ing nearly 90 per­cent of all U.S. corn seeds, and a likely cul­prit in colony col­lapse disorder—the fancy name for the dis­ap­pear­ance of bees. It doesn’t take a PhD in agron­omy to know that pol­li­na­tors like bees are an essen­tial part of being able to feed the world.

I don’t know about you, but I’m increas­ingly frus­trated by all this spin: by the ad cam­paigns, the trade-group pub­lic rela­tions machines, the lob­by­ing, the front groups—the myth-making. And, while I don’t have $817 mil­lion (that’s what Monsanto spent on adver­tis­ing in just one year), I do have some pow­er­ful allies—great food, farm­ing and labor groups who share my frus­tra­tion and want to do some­thing about it. So together, we’re launch­ing Food MythBusters: a one-stop shop to get your burn­ing ques­tions about food answered through short films, Q&As with experts and links to essen­tial research.

Our first film takes on the myth that we need indus­trial agri­cul­ture to feed the world. We’re offer­ing sneak peeks at SXSW Eco in Austin and with part­ners in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Boston and cul­mi­nat­ing with a national launch on Food Day, October 24th.

We’re invit­ing you—yes you—to help join us in spread­ing the word about the poten­tial for sus­tain­able food, farm­ing and the excit­ing work spring­ing to life across the coun­try to remake our food system. This will ensure more and more of us have access to good, healthy,sustainably raised food.

Please join us by screen­ing our first film wher­ever you are—on col­lege cam­puses, in church base­ments, at CSA pick­ups and fam­ily rooms. We hope screen­ings will stim­u­late con­ver­sa­tion, edu­cate more about the real story of our food and com­pel peo­ple to get involved in trans­form­ing our food system—in their com­mu­ni­ties and across the country.

Visit www.foodmyths.org to see a teaser trailer and down­load a step-by-step toolkit for orga­niz­ing a screening—it’s not too late. Contact JGordon@StopCorporateAbuse.org if you’d like more infor­ma­tion about how to join the many groups around the coun­try host­ing a screen­ing on Food Day, or any day this fall. Together, we can take back the story of our food from the mar­ket­ing machine of Big Agriculture.

Anna Lappé

Anna Lappé is a widely respected author and edu­ca­tor, renowned for her work as a sus­tain­able food advo­cate. Anna’s work has been widely trans­lated inter­na­tion­ally and fea­tured in The New York Times, Gourmet, Oprah Magazine, and many other outlets.