American Farm Bureau Federation President Bob Stallman
SEATTLE — Steve Brown of Capital Press quotes president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, Bob Stallman as issuing a call to arms to counter criticism of conventional agriculture:
“It is up to us to share the strength of our character and the tradition of our values with our fellow citizens,” Stallman said at the annual meeting Jan. 10 in Seattle.
“But a line must be drawn between our polite and respectful engagement with consumers and the way we must aggressively respond to extremists who want to drag agriculture back to the days of 40 acres and a mule.”
Stallman described how the media, through films, magazine articles and undercover videos have turned public opinion against what he calls “contemporary agriculture.”
The Capital Press article says Stallman wants farmers and ranchers to adopt a new attitude, to resist the “self-appointed and self-promoting food experts” who seek to damage the reputation of traditional agricultural values.
“To those who expect to just roll over America’s farm and ranch families,” Stallman said, “my only message is this: The circumstances have changed.”
The Capital Press article doesn’t elaborate on what Stallman suggests farmers and ranchers actually do.
Tom Laskawy of the Grist website gives his reaction to Stallman’s speech:
“According to Stallman, the top challenge facing farmers isn’t the rising cost of seed, fertilizer, and pesticides. Or the alarming growth of superweeds (a new report says that over 50 percent of fields in Missouri harbor weeds resistant to the herbicide RoundUp, upon which the entire GMO production style is based). Or the threat posed by climate change, which could reduce U.S. grain yields substantially soon and by 80 percent within decades.
No, the top challenge facing farmers is, and I quote [Stallman], ‘the nonstop criticism of contemporary agriculture.’”
The issues facing agriculture today are much more complicated than lining up behind labels such as "local" and "organic." (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)
Criticism of conventional agriculture is the subject of a recent article by the L.A. Times Russ Parsons. Parsons says:
“One of the more pleasing developments of the last decade has been the long-overdue beginning of a national conversation about food — not just the arcane techniques used to prepare it and the luxurious restaurants in which it is served, but, much more important, how it is grown and produced.
The only problem is that so far it hasn’t been much of a conversation. Instead, what we have are two armed camps deeply suspicious of one another shouting past each other (sound familiar?). . . What I’d like to see happen in the next decade is a more constructive give-and-take, the start of a true conversation.”
The defiant tone of Bob Stallman’s speech and the quick reaction to it suggest a “constructive conversation” between differing agricultural perspectives has not yet begun.
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Guy Hand is a writer, public radio producer and photographer specializing in food and agriculture. |
[...] January 11th, I reported on the drawing-a-line-in-the-sand speech by American Farm Bureau Federation president, Bob Stallman. In his speech, Stallman said farmers [...]