It's time for farmers to tell ag's story

Editorial

During a three-hour speech in the campaign of 1890, populist rabble rouser Mary Lease reportedly told her audience in Halstead, Kan., "What you farmers need to do is raise less corn and more hell."

Whether Lease ever uttered the phrase is unclear, but most agree it reflected her sentiment. In speeches across the Western plains she challenged farm families to fight for their own self interest.

It was with equal force, but greater deference to the occasion, that American Farm Bureau Federation president Bob Stallman told the group's national convention in Seattle last week that ag interests must take off the gloves and aggressively challenge industry critics and those who, through litigation, legislation or regulation, threaten the viability of conventional farmers and ranchers.

"The time has come to face our opponents with a new attitude," he said. "The days of their elitist power grabs are over."

We agree that farmers and ranchers must directly, and forcefully, challenge the picture of modern agriculture painted by critics, extremist animal rights organizations and environmental activists.

These individuals and organizations -- accurately described by Stallman as self-appointed and self-promoting -- have distorted the facts to press their own agenda. While we encourage constructive and respectful dialogue between reasonable parties, there comes a time when the point must be made in the most direct terms possible.

"I never did give anybody hell," Harry Truman is quoted as saying. "I just told the truth and they thought it was hell."

It is equally important that the industry speak honestly, directly and often to the American public, 300 million customers who are more knowledgeable about popular culture than they are about modern agricultural practices. The consumers of food, mostly two or more generations removed from the farm, get their information, sometimes factual but often not, from television, magazines, the Internet and popular books.

Those sources have a spotty record with the truth about agriculture. In the midst of the farm crisis of the early 1980s, all farmers were portrayed in popular movies as being the hapless and simple victims of the monied interests. Twenty-five years later, the survivors of that age are painted in the popular press as "corporate farmers" who use "factory" methods to produce unhealthy, unsafe food stuffs at the expense of the environment, all for the sake of profit.

American agriculture has a powerful story to tell. Never have fewer people produced so much food in so great a variety. Neither quaint portraits of rural characters nor exposes on the few bad actors within the farming community tell the story.

Several ag organizations have adopted programs to take that story into the classrooms and other venues. Others are using social networking to reach out beyond the farm. We applaud these efforts, and encourage every farmer and rancher to reach out to their non-farm neighbors to explain the whole truth about modern agricultural practices.

Some of those facts may not be pleasant, and are sure to challenge the stereotypes and myths about farming and farmers that have become embedded in many a layman's mind. But once given the facts, we can trust that most people will be able to see through the distortions proffered by a vocal minority.