Organic or Not: Jayson Lusk at TEDxOStateU

what we eat is very personal but food is also social and increasingly food and agriculture are political I'm pleased to have the opportunity to share with you today some of my thoughts about the future of food and the fight for that future is going like everyone I have a past that has shaped my perspectives I grew up in a very small town in West Texas in fact there were 12 people in my senior class I spent my childhood summers working in neighbors cotton and soybean fields and I can distinctly remember one hot summer afternoon standing in the middle of a cotton field Sun beating down on my sunburned hands callous palms with about a half a mile to go to the end of the row thinking to myself this is all the incentive I will ever need to finish college and that's what I did so I got degrees in food technology and later in agricultural economics along the way I worked for County Extension agents producing some of the first biotech cotton in that part of Texas and I work for food processors sweeping floors and making sauces for restaurant chains like Chili's I've spent my life around the people who grow the food and manufacture the food we eat and yet it seems that almost everyone is an expert on food these days it's hard to turn on the TV or open up a magazine without seeing some cookbook author journalist or celebrity chef telling us that some new diet or farm policy or farming practice will solve all of our problems with food what exactly are these problems let's turn to some of the critics of modern production agriculture Yale professor Kelly Brownell tells us that we live in a toxic food environment best-selling author Michael Pollan wrote that Americans have a national eating disorder and in a TED talk about five years ago Mark Bittman who's a New York Times columnist and a cookbook author showed a picture of a cow an atomic bomb explosion and then said that our modern American food production system is leading to a holocaust of a different kind in short we eat too much sugar too much meat too much processed food too many pesticides agriculture is too corporate to monoculture too subsidized we're too fat we're spending too much on health care and we're living unsustainably the prescription that's offered for these problems is local slow unprocessed natural food in many ways it's a return to nature in an abandonment of modern production agriculture but how accurate is this caricature of our food production system well let's take a little quiz which of the following statements is true a obesity rates have significantly risen over the past decade B adoption of genetically modified crops has increased insecticide use see corporate farms have taken over agriculture and small family farms are struggling ordy organic apples are grown without pesticides actually none of these are true none of these are entirely true they're false is it possible or let's face it you know we humans we're notoriously bad at judging relatively small risks and is it possible that a lot a lot of what you've read about modern food agriculture and perhaps even believed is wrong I'm going to be honest with you if I'm working out in my lawn and I come across even the smallest grass snake I'm going to go running screaming like a little girl in the opposite direction even though I know that little snake can't do me much harm it's just human nature to focus on the negative and the emotional but sometimes these feelings can get the better of us let's take our quiz as an example on obesity according to an article and the Journal of the American Medical Association published this year there has not been a significant rise in the rate of obesity among women the last 12 years and the same is true among men in the last six on GMOs an article in the journal science showed that the adoption of genetically engineered cotton reduced insecticide use by about 70 percent the USDA has come to similar conclusions for corn and soybeans and it showed that even in cases where we it were the adoption of genetically modified crops increases herbicide use it causes farmers to switch to less toxic and environmentally damaging herbicides on farms the data reveals that 98% of all farms in this country are family farms and 91% of all farms are small farms there are more farms today than there were a decade ago and the household income on those farms is higher too and organics do use pesticides they use natural pesticides like copper and sulfur which are often more toxic than the synthetic pesticides that farmers use you know we fret over the dangers of food pesticides but the reality is that pesticide use and food is a relatively small risk in the grand scheme of things did you know you're over 15 times more likely to die from drowning in the bathtub then you are from the effects of food pesticides now these are just a few examples but when authors NGOs and government agencies require crises to sell books and secure funding and donations there's a natural incentive to focus on only one side of the story the result is that sometimes we can get distracted from the things in life that matter most I worry about that small snake in the grass when I should be worried about keeping my kids from running out in the middle of the street now I can understand if you want to avoid GMOs or pesticides or growth promotants and food but let's not forget that it is more expensive to produce food without these technologies and while you or I might be willing to pay to avoid these small risks and food not everyone is so fortunate just because we have enough food to eat today doesn't guarantee the same for the future our food abundance that we've enjoyed is a triumph of human ingenuity over nature's and difference to us what is natural food anyway did you know that the ancestor of modern corn was no bigger than your thumb Americans had never eaten beef or pork or even wheat until the 15th century and there was no such thing as Italian tomato sauce or Irish potatoes until after Columbus sailed the ocean blue and yet we can scarcely imagine any foods more natural than these but nature is not our friend it's trying to compete with us there is after all nothing more natural than dying in about 2005 a chorus of cookbook authors were telling us that food in this country was too cheap but little did they know that only a few years later in 2008 that corn prices would more than double as I speak prices for corn are near their record levels and the same is true for wheat and many other commodities by turning our backs on the efficiencies of modern food technologies is it possible that we may eventually be starving the very people we say we want to help in our vexation over obesity we seem to have forgotten that 15 percent of u.s. u.s. households over 50 million Americans are today food insecure that's happening at the same time that a record number of Americans one in seven of us are today on food stamps globally the United Nations tells us that there are over a billion people in the world starving today as recent history illustrates falling food prices are not a guarantee we have thankfully avoided the Malthusian nightmare so far but as they like to say about stocks past performance is no guarantee of future success you know Maslow's famous hierarchy of needs had a foundation and eating is it and yet we seem to have taken this triangle and turned it on its head we want people to reach inner fulfillment and self-actualization with their food choices but how can they do that when they're just hungry now you may choose to avoid foods with modern technologies but we should at least acknowledge the consequences of denying these technologies to others now none of this is to say there aren't problems with our food production system there are but a proper diagnosis of the patient is required before surgery is begun and let's not forget the good because of the advancements and food technologies in agriculture we have much more leisure time today we spend 40% less time in food preparation in 81% less time in meal cleanup than we did in the 1960s if that change doesn't sound good to you go talk to your grandmother and look around at the many millions of American women who are able today to work outside the home because food is so much more convenient and we're eating better to reading 25% more fruits and vegetables than we did in the 1970s we're living longer 30 years longer than we did a century ago and farmers are a lot more productive corn yields for example are up over 400 percent since the 1900s but you don't have to take my word for it even the USDA tells us that food in this country has never been more nutritious safer providing fewer and less environmental impacts and these facts are true even if we don't like to admit it as John Steinbeck put it when he was traveling across America in the 1960s even while I protest the assembly line production of our food our songs our language and eventually our souls I know it was a rare home that baked good bread in the old days I want to open up alternative acceptable avenues for thinking about the future of food my fear is it a worldview that celebrates naturalism as a core tenant is one that isn't inherently hostile to innovation and growth even if they reduce poverty and bring about improvements in the health and environment I don't want a future where my kids are brooding over how to grow the oldest heirloom tomato but rather one where they're thinking about how to get corn to produce its own fertilizer and where they dream about space-age technologies that can make tasty nutritious food with the push of a button now these dreams may never materialize but they are destined to fail if we create a culture in which we can never imagine I'm rationally optimistic about the future of food my hope is in the dynamism and innovativeness of farmers in ranchers trying to make a buck by selling us things we don't yet know we even want I say let's get out of their way thank you you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 20,441

Keywords: Business, ted talks, ted x, Global Issues, TEDxOStateU, tedx talk, tedx talks, tedx, Health, Science, English, Food, ted talk, Lifestyle, United States, ted

Id: e1A3mdpElgg

Length: 11min 56sec (716 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 30 2012