Corn Commentary

Food Inc. Undercooked With Angry Bias?

No matter what your opinion of the Food Inc. documentary might be, my opinion of the latest social media tool – Twitter – took a huge leap to the positive side today. Twitter was atwitter today with one of the liveliest discussions on the Food. Inc. movie or agriculture in general that I have seen in a long time.

Some of the online comments were rude, many were funny or insightful, some were hopelessly naive, and all made you think at some level. And interestingly enough many from the agriculture community from the crop and livestock side were in the thick of the discussion….slow phone line speed and all. You are to be commended. It you aren’t on Twitter, get their quick…. www.twitter.com

Robert Kenner, Food Inc. Director, was featured and online to answer questions.  (Long after Mr. Kenner left the discussion tweets continued…for 4 hours before I stopped keeping track) He may have created a questionable documentary and as one participant in the Twitter chat said today…”food and politics should never be served on the same plate,” but he deserves credit for putting himself out there in such a public forum. And at least this forum, unlike Good Morning America or the upcoming Nightline segment on his project,  allowed both sides to be heard. For a movie reviewer’s perspective go to: http://bit.ly/14IocQ

If you don’t have time here it is in a nutshell:

“The side effect of a well-executed horror film is lack of sleep. The side effect of a well-executed documentary on corruption of our food supply is lack of appetite. Personally? I left “Food, Inc.,” went straight to lunch and had a big ole’ fried-chicken salad.  Unfortunately for this film, one of the most valuable elements of education is learning to separate fact from bias and to seek proof in the form of evidence. “Food, Inc.” seems to cloud the presentation with a whole lot of bias and little proof.”

Now on to some jewels from today’s Twitter discussion:

I loved Variety’s review of Food Inc…it did for supermarkets what Jaws did for the beach.

How do you answer the need to feed a doubling or global population without utilizing any technology? Seems selfish to not look beyond the U.S.

Farmers are growing what they are paid for. We need to create a system where they can make money growing healthier foods.

Going back to how cattle used to be raised would require an added 16.5 million acres of land.

Gotta point this out moviemakers, Roundup soybeans are not insect resistant but herbicide tolerant.

I think we need diversity is Ag which means men and women, big and small, modern and old school. Room for all in Ag

Ag employs 21 million or 15% of the total U.S. workforce. The only entity employing more is government.