Misinformation hurts producers

All it takes is a brief drive down the Information Highway to demonstrate that food producers have no reason to be complacent about consumers.

While there is a huge amount of good information on the Internet and other electronic services, there is also a good deal of misinformation.

On one agriculture-related forum, for example, one pure-food fanatic posted a warning: “Don’t use canola oil, it’s poison.” (Actually, he used capital letters and two exclamation marks to stress his point.)

Thankfully, someone else was quick to explain that the writer was confusing canola with high-erucic-acid rapeseed.

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But then, another commentator chimed in with a mind-boggling diatribe – it’s not helpful to single out canola oil, she said, because it’s only one of hundreds of toxic agricultural products.

Her list of allegedly toxic foods included all “unorganically grown produce,” pasteurized orange juice, dairy products and any product from dead animals.

As if that weren’t enough, “cooked food is dead, devitalized food, no enzymes in it, not natural, no ‘life force’ in it.”

That’s an extreme example, but it does illustrate some of the ideas floating around among an urban population that seems to have less and less understanding of the sources of its food.

Without public education and dialogue to reduce such misunderstanding, agricultural producers will suffer.

If consumers don’t believe that producers are providing safe, nutritious food, then costly and restrictive regulations will inevitably follow.

Useful crop-protection chemicals will be banned, animal production methods will be disrupted, and the normal sounds and smells of farming will not be tolerated.

Public-education efforts have to be maintained, and strengthened wherever possible.

Individual farmers can help their industry in many ways, from being a resource for school classes to joining Internet discussion groups.

Their greatest impact, however, is through collective action, encouraging their organizations and associations to maintain strong information programs.

This is one area where producers of all marketing ideologies should be able to co-operate.

The Beef Information Centre funded by cattle producers is one of the best examples of a pro-active public-education service, communicating everything from recipes to expert scientific advice on nutrition.

In their own self-interest, producers need to support such groups.