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May 1, 2005 12:00 PM
by Jay Lehr, Ph.D. Guest columnist
A century ago most Americans lived either on a farm or near a farm or had relatives they could visit on a farm. The public looked at farming as God's work. The farmer was viewed as a hero wearing a white hat astride a white horse. Today that image has faded.
Less than 2% of the nation is now involved in production agriculture, and most people have never set foot on a farm. Many city kids honestly do not understand where milk comes from beyond the grocery store cardboard carton.
Worst of all, for the past 20 years, environmental zealots have painted a target on the backs of modern farmers, accusing them of spoiling our land and environment. A quiet group, farmers have failed to tell their real story, and now the public too often sees us wearing black hats astride black horses.
It is time to mobilize and tell our true story and win back a deservedly outstanding reputation. It is said that all it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing, and that is exactly what we have been doing for many years. Fortunately, the people we need to reach are very close to home. They are members of our families, our companies and our communities not directly involved in farming or ranching.
It is true that the leadership of many environmental advocacy groups does not like American agriculture and believes that we could import all our food, but their numbers are small. Our problem is that a large percentage of the American public believes this misinformation because we have offered no factual alternatives — until now.
A few years ago, Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan began an image-building program for agriculture it called Fertile Minds. It was so successful that last year the corporation donated the program to its trade group, The Fertilizer Institute, which used it as a springboard to launch the Nutrients for Life Foundation, supported by the entire fertilizer industry.
The foundation has available videotapes, CD ROMs, pamphlets and books suitable for creating presentations to schools, town meetings, or small groups of friends, family and coworkers.
Surveys done on the streets of Chicago, San Francisco and Washington, DC, show that most people think fertilizers (believe it or not) are toxic wastes spread on the land to improve production. Ninety percent do not know what nitrogen, phosphate and potash are or why they are used. They also think farmers universally overuse fertilizers and other agricultural chemicals unnecessarily. They think the nation would be better if we could afford to grow and eat only organic food. They see the farmer as a despoiler of our land and environment.
All the readers of this magazine know differently, but have you spent 10 minutes in the past month trying to dispel this falsehood? With the materials available from the Nutrients for Life Foundation, you could effectively spend an hour a week reeducating your community about the wonders of American agriculture.
Examples of five messages that you could spread are embedded in letters of the words FARM RULES:
F — Fertilizers are drawn from nature; they are not man-made.
R — Farmers are not adding fertilizers to the ground. They are Replacing and Recycling nutrients lost at each harvest.
U — The world has no choice but to Use fertilizers. Without them, two billion people would starve.
L — By increasing yields with fertilizer, farmers conserve Land, safeguarding recreational areas and wildlife habitats.
E — Farmers are the best Environmental stewards, because their families live upon the land. Every day is Earth day on the farm.
Contact the Nutrients for Life Foundation (800/962-9065) and begin giving your time and/or money to help win the hearts and minds of the American public back to the wonders of our great agriculture industry.
Jay Lehr is science director at the Heartland Institute and spokesperson for Nutrients for Life Foundation.
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