Farmer Jeff, as the slightly sunburned farmer calls himself, sits under blue skies in a genetically modified potato field.
He chats about the leaves on his plants and answers questions from viewers. The video, taken last summer, is shaky and grainy.
But it has been watched on the internet by people around the world as part of a research project examining consumer reaction to GM food.
The project combined the homespun images and hospitalities of a family farm with the latest in food production and information technology.
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Douglas Powell, a biologist at the University of Guelph, Ont., and the man behind the research, described the project to farmers at recent Agricore conferences in Winnipeg and Red Deer.
He teamed up with Jeff Wilson of Birkbank Farms in Hillsburgh, Ont., just northwest of Toronto, to find out what consumers think of GM crops.
“Basically, this was just a four-month conversation with consumers,” said Powell, known for his wry commentary on public reaction to food safety issues.
Wilson, a fruit and vegetable producer who also runs a farm market, grew 10-acre plots of sweet corn and potatoes.
Some of the plots had varieties that had been genetically modified with the Bt gene, or Bacillus thuringiensis, a naturally occurring bacteria that kills corn borer and potato beetles.
He also planted conventional vegetable varieties.
Wilson and Powell created a three-kilometre walking tour from the farm market through the fields.
Consumers could see for themselves the “biodiversity” in the Bt crops compared to conventional crops, which were sprayed with chemicals several times during the season, Powell said.
“And there were lots of monarch butterflies flying around (the Bt fields) too.”
Powell said customers, environmentalists and media toured the farm. A group of people from the United Kingdom that toured the farm were “astounded” that consumers had not uprooted the GM plants.
Powell and Wilson also provided weekly updates on a website, including still photos and videos of Farmer Jeff and researchers.
When crops were ready for market, the researchers offered free taste tests of the GM and non-GM corn.
Signs over bins containing corn and potatoes described the methods used to grow them.
Some consumers didn’t want to try the Bt corn, Powell said, but most didn’t have strong negative opinions about the technology.
The most common consumer response was surprise that farmers used pesticides to grow corn.
At the same price, the Bt corn outsold conventional sweet corn two to one, Powell said, because consumers liked the fact that the Bt corn required fewer chemicals.
Powell also wanted to set up the experiment in a local grocery store, but found produce managers scared of consumer reaction.
“They’re not going to lead. They are always going to follow.”
Powell and Wilson hope to expand the model farm concept next summer. In his final video Walkabout, Wilson tells website visitors he wants to turn his farm into a living laboratory where consumers can find out more about how their food is produced.
