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Myth Busting & Fact Finding For grades 6-12 Julie Taylor, education coordinator

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.

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Myth Busting & Fact Finding For grades 6-12 Julie Taylor, education coordinator

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  1. Myth Busting & Fact Finding For grades 6-12 Julie Taylor, education coordinator

  2. Agriculture : On Trend, Hot Topic What are key words often heard in the media about agriculture?

  3. 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.

  4. Education: a minefield of change What are key words often heard in the media about education?

  5. Fact or Fiction, Fad or Forever Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture Available at www.fb.org for $7.50 + SH

  6. 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

  7. 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

  8. Those who do not understand how their food is produced and the challenges associated with that production can easily be misled.

  9. 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.

  10. NON SEQUITOR BY WILEY Just because the majority of people believe something is true, does not make it so.

  11. 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.

  12. 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.

  13. 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.

  14. 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.

  15. 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.

  16. Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture 6. Organic food production does not use ? or synthetic fertilizers.

  17. 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.”

  18. Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture 7. Organic farming has less impact on the environment than traditional farming.

  19. 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.

  20. Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture 10. To protect children from cancer, use organic peanut butter to make their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

  21. 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.

  22. 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.

  23. Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture 11. Homeowners use the greatest concentration of chemical pesticides per acre.

  24. Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture The EPA found that homeowners applied chemical pesticides at a rate eight times per acre higher than did farmers.

  25. Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture 15. Brown eggs are more nutritious than ? .

  26. Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture There is no nutritional difference between white and brown eggs. Different breeds produce brown, white or blue eggs.

  27. Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture 19. Globally, hunger is caused by a shortage of food.

  28. 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.

  29. Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture Poverty results in the inability to: • purchase food; • safely store food; or • transport food in areas where drought occurs.

  30. Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture 35. A person’s genes can be changed by eating a genetically modified fruit or vegetable.

  31. 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.

  32. 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.

  33. 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!

  34. 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.

  35. Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture • Why? • To ensure abundance. • Civilization is dependent on the ability to provide food, clothing and shelter in abundance.

  36. Addressing Misconceptions About Agriculture Developed By Betty WolanykDirector, 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

  37. Farmer for the Day

  38. Food and Farm Facts WWW.FB.ORG/ORDERS $6.50 each + S&H $4.25 + S&H

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