Anyway, let’s get started. Easy ones first. Sorry if I get too sarcastic.

MYTH: Food activists think livestock are “somehow magically healthier without benefit of medicine.”
Um, no. 70% of all antibiotics produced in this country are given to animals that aren’t even sick, either to cause faster-than-natural growth, for increased profits, or to keep them from getting sick because factory farm owners have crowded them together in filthy disease-breeding conditions…for increased profits. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, antibiotics overuse is contributing to the rise of antibiotic-resistant infections that are costly to taxpayers, difficult to treat, and disproportionately burdening those with weakened immune citizens, like children and the elderly. So how about this – sick livestock should be given medicine, but the seven classes of antibiotics that are important to human medicine should be off limits…and if that doesn’t work out, considering the unsanitary Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) that livestock are raised in, maybe CAFO owners should consider raising their animals in a more hygienic environment. For everyone’s sake. And about the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production – you’re right, the effects of CAFOs on rural communities, public health, and the environment should probably just be left un-studied. It’s not like farmers, of the industrial and organic variety, are leading the fight to get CAFOs out of their communities because they lead to lower property values, overwhelming smells, and overflowing manure lagoons (actually they are). It’s not like food activists are working with farmers when they assist in that fight (actually they are).

Hmm, now that I think about it, half of America’s dairy farmers are about to go out of business because prices have fallen so low, and the food activists I know supported an emergency increase in prices – for organic and industrial dairy farmers – to help keep that from happening. But it is hard to believe they don’t just hate conventional farmers with all of their guts.

MYTH: Non-industrial farming means abandoning science to farm the way your great-grandparents did.
Actually, agroecological farmers are combining the best of modern science with the most sustainable of practices, so that they can feed the world now and in the future, without, say, depleting the water table, stripping all the nutrients out of the land, or tying food prices to the sky-rocketing cost of fossil fuel. In case you’re curious about what kind of farming might lead to the problems mentioned above, that would be the kind promoted in the Green Revolution. Happily, these are problems we can move away from with agroecological farming. Or at least that’s what a group of more than 400 scientists and development experts (sponsored by the UN, World Bank, and other international organizations) concluded after four years studying  spent four years studying the future of agriculture, in their report, the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD).  Then there was that UNCTAD report, Organic Agriculture and Food Security in Africa…you know, the one that says organic agriculture can be more conducive to food security in Africa than most conventional production systems, and that it is more likely to be sustainable in the long term?  I could keep going…and I probably will in another post, because this is a charge that people make in almost every anti-sustainable food article you find.

MYTH: Food activists hate white people…and men…and other people’s children…

It is fun for a change to hear someone say that food activists hate white people. Most of the time, folks are saying, with an equal amount of inaccuracy, “All food activists are white!!!” I am just going to say that I appreciate the variety in these false accusations, and leave it at that. I did want to share that we do let men into “the movement” too. We’re reluctant about it, of course, but we know it’s the right thing to do. Mostly, however, we’re a bunch of soccer moms, hippies, and barren women who make up for our childless lives by only eating fancy French cheeses. You know, people who don’t know anything about anything, don’t have the right to research issues and share their opinion, and don’t deserve respect.

Really though…

Who is this “you” that “we” supposedly hate? It’s a little confusing, but in the end, Mike Smith seems to be arguing that food activists hate white male farmers. All I can really say is, that’s not true. Food activists want farmers to earn fair prices, and have access to affordable credit, so they never have to face the agonizing decision of selling the family farm or going bankrupt. White male farmer hate is just not on the agenda. If anyone’s hating, it’s Mike Smith, and I think we all know who he hates.

Want more info?

To read more about the overuse of antibiotics in animal agriculture, visit http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/solutions/wise_antibiotics/pamta.html.

Go to http://www.panna.org/files/PANagroecologyBrief20090505.pdf to learn about agroecology, the science behind sustainable agriculture.

To learn more about IAASTD, visit http://civileats.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/IAASTD-brief-PANNA.pdf, or read the report yourself at www.agassessment.org.

The UNCTAD report, Organic Agriculture and Food Security in Africa, can be found at http://www.unctad.org/trade_env/test1/publications/UNCTAD_DITC_TED_2007_15.pdf.

And don’t forget, Smith is posting five more reasons that “We” hate “You” next week – so stay tuned in to Planting Truth!

People who object to a movement usually try to discredit the ideas it presents through attacks on the people bearing those ideas. And with so many of those attacks going down, I get the feeling these days that the general public is more pissed off at actual food activists – or the stereotypes they read about – than ideas like “current modes of food production are destroying the environment”.

So, with this blog, I will try to to shatter myths about food activists, sustainable agriculture, and the like, by politely pulling apart op-eds and articles that propagate them. Send any denigrating piece you find to plantingtruth@gmail.com, and I’ll try to respond to it on the blog.

Hope you enjoy.