Myth Busting & Fact Finding
For grades 6-12
Julie Taylor, education coordinator
Agriculture : On Trend, Hot Topic
WHAT ARE KEY WORDS OFTEN HEARD
IN THE MEDIA ABOUT AGRICULTURE?
Informative Presentation Topic Ideas
• How genetic seed improvement works.
• Trends in agricultural productivity growth
• Renewable energy sources.
• (think about conveying info on biodiesel, ethanol fuels,
and other earth friendly sources of biomass energy.
Education: a minefield of change
WHAT ARE KEY WORDS OFTEN HEARD
IN THE MEDIA ABOUT EDUCATION?
Fact or Fiction, Fad or Forever
ADDRESSING MISCONCEPTIONS
ABOUT AGRICULTURE
Available at www.fb.org for $7.50 + SH
Implementing Strategies
• Power Point
– Already created with presenter notes
– You can edit to meet audience and timeframe
• Instructor’s Guide
– Lesson Plan with 3 activities
– Activity cards and worksheet
WHEN? AND WHERE?
• Presentations to civic organizations
– Lions, Kiwanis, Rotary, Home Ec clubs
• Teacher In-service or teacher workshop
• Grades 7 through 12
– Foods and Nutrition
– Fundamentals of Ag
– Middle School or Junior High FACS (Home Ec)
– Science classes
– 4-H Junior Leaders & FFA chapters
Those who do not understand how their food is
produced and the challenges associated with that
production can easily be misled.
Fact or Fiction
• Clear up misconceptions before attempting to
teach or learn new information.
– Misconception: People once believed that the
earth was the center of the solar system.
– Impact: how do you understand what causes day
and night?
– Misconception: People once believed that the
earth was the center of the solar system.
– Impact: How do you explain seasons or changing
day length.
NON SEQUITOR
BY WILEY
Just because the majority of people believe something is true, does not
make it so.
Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture
For the first time in human history, the
majority of people will have no contact with
the source of their food….
…other than buying or eating it.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture
By 2050, the majority of the world’s
population will be disconnected from the
earth.
•
•
In 1950, more than 75 percent of world’s
population was rural.
By 2050, almost 75 percent of world’s
population will be urban.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture
The average U.S. citizen is three or more
generations removed from the farm.
Food is taken for granted.
•
•
•
Issue has no personal relevance.
Sentimentality persists, but far less than in
past.
More questioning of farmers’ competency.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture
The ignorant are very easily misled.
•
•
•
We believe that we understand subjects
that we do not.
We fear the wrong things.
We don’t fear the right things.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture
The U.S. public has many misconceptions
about agriculture.
•
•
•
Many we are taught!
Others come from superficial reporting by
media or through advertising.
Once something is in print, it is repeated,
endlessly, as factual.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture
6. Organic food production does not use
?
or synthetic fertilizers.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture
• Organic production can use “natural”
pesticides.
– Mineral salts
– Pesticides from plant materials
• The greatest quantity of chemical
pesticides are being applied to organic
crops as approved “natural pesticides.”
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture
7. Organic farming has less impact on the
environment than traditional farming.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture
• Many natural pesticides are persistent in the
environment.
• Many need to be applied several times or at
higher rates to protect the targeted crops.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture
10. To protect children from cancer, use
organic peanut butter to make their
peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture
• Facts about peanuts:
– Peanuts grow in the ground.
– Soil naturally contains many fungi.
– Some of those fungi produce aflatoxins.
– Aflatoxins are known and very potent carcinogens.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture
• Growers use fungicides on peanuts produced
traditionally.
• Fewer fungi mean that less aflatoxin is found in
commercial peanut butter.
• Organic peanut butter is often contaminated with
aflatoxins.
• So, traditional peanut butter has less potential for
aflatoxin contamination.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture
11. Homeowners use the greatest
concentration of chemical pesticides
per acre.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture
The EPA found that homeowners applied
chemical pesticides at a rate eight times
per acre higher than did farmers.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture
15. Brown eggs are more nutritious than
? .
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture
There is no nutritional difference between
white and brown eggs.
Different breeds produce brown, white or
blue eggs.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture
19. Globally, hunger is caused by a
shortage of food.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture
The world produces enough food to feed
everyone.
Even Africa produces enough food to feed
its people.
Hunger is caused by poverty
•
in this country and elsewhere.
Hunger may also be intentional.
•
It may be induced for political or social reasons.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture
Poverty results in the inability to:
•
•
•
purchase food;
safely store food; or
transport food in areas where drought
occurs.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture
35. A person’s genes can be changed by
eating a genetically modified fruit or
vegetable.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture
No.
If you eat corn, do you become corn?
Do your children become corn?
No, your body digests the proteins and
absorbs the amino acids to use them to
build proteins.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture
• Population:
– By 2050, population will
climb from current 6
billion to about 11
billion people
– We will need to feed
twice today’s
population.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture
We will need to produce as
much food in the next 40 years
as has been produced in all of
human history!
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture
To accomplish this, we need:
•
•
a public that understands the food and fiber
system.
to make decisions using research–based
information, not rumor, innuendo nor the
rhetoric of the self-serving.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture
• Why?
– To ensure abundance.
– Civilization is dependent on the ability to provide
food, clothing and shelter in abundance.
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Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture
Developed By
Betty Wolanyk
Director, Education and Research
Produced and Distributed By
American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture
600 Maryland Avenue, SW, Suite 1000W
Washington, DC 20024
www.ageducate.org
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Farmer for the Day
Corn harvesting activity:
1. Number of kernels harvested (the amount in the bag from the beginning) ___________
2. Number of kernels paid in expenses:
a. Fertilizer & Herbicide:
___________
b. Seed Cost:
___________
c. Equipment:
___________
d. Land: Rented/ Owned:
___________
e. Other expenses:
___________
3. Number of kernels left (profit or loss):
___________
4. Multiplied by $0.10 each, equals profit per bushel:
___________
5. Multiplied by 200 bu. per acre: (earnings per acre)
___________
6. Multiplied by 60 acres (earnings for the field)
___________
Food and Farm Facts
WWW.FB.ORG/ORDERS