{"id":4972,"date":"2009-09-17T23:04:59","date_gmt":"2009-09-18T05:04:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=4972"},"modified":"2009-09-17T23:04:59","modified_gmt":"2009-09-18T05:04:59","slug":"what-does-an-agricultural-scientist-worry-about-in-the-food-supply-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/what-does-an-agricultural-scientist-worry-about-in-the-food-supply-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"What Does an Agricultural Scientist Worry About in the Food Supply (Part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Edvard<\/a>[social_buttons]<\/p>\n

Lots of people in America are worried about their food – usually not about having enough food, but mostly about things that might be in their food that could potentially hurt them or their children. \u00a0People also worry about the environmental impacts of food production. \u00a0At one level I’m glad that people are engaged in this way and I do believe that there are legitimate concerns. \u00a0\u00a0I happen to think that some of the fear about food is\u00a0misplaced.<\/p>\n

I believe that much of this fear stems from a limited understanding of toxicology<\/a>, molecular genetics, and also what farming is actually about today. \u00a0Very few Americans have any real contact with farming. \u00a0Frankly, some of this fear is also driven by the activities of businesses and organizations with a vested economic interest in alarming people.<\/p>\n

I’ve been working as an agricultural scientist for 32 years. \u00a0I’ve had the opportunity to learn about lots of crops grown all over the world. \u00a0I’ve been involved with all sorts of different technologies. \u00a0I’ve seen huge changes in agriculture over time. So from all of this experience, do I worry about anything to do with food? \u00a0Yes, absolutely I do worry!<\/strong> But my list of worries is a little different from the norm<\/p>\n

What I don’t worry about<\/h2>\n

Honestly, I don’t worry much about pesticides<\/a>.\u00a0 The EPA conducts such a comprehensive risk assessment and uses such big safety factors that I’m quite comfortable with their regulatory over-site.\u00a0 I don’t worry about GMO crops either because I have observed the way that the industry, regulators and the academic community thought-through the issues well in advance of commercialization (e.g. since the late 1980s and the first GMO crops were sold in 1996).\u00a0 There has probably never been a large-scale technology implemented with more care and less problems than biotech crops.<\/p>\n

What I do worry about<\/h2>\n

So you might well be thinking, “Sure, this guy is just an industry-insider that sees everything through rose colored glasses!\u00a0 He’s just about “happy talk” when it comes to modern agriculture.” \u00a0Well, in fact I don’t think that everything is great with modern agriculture, and there are a number of things that do honestly worry me about our food supply and things that I think other people should be concerned about as well.<\/p>\n

I’ve already blogged about some of these concerns including the way that an important food crop like wheat is falling behind<\/a> other major crops, or the way that virtually all farming technologies are being kept out of Africa<\/a>. \u00a0I don’t mean to be alarmist, but these qualify as real risk issues and probably deserve much more attention than pesticides or GMOs.\u00a0 Here is the rest of my “Agricultural Scientist’s Worry List”<\/span>:<\/span><\/p>\n