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Borlaug granddaughter: Agriculture needs to retool message
Without agriculture, many of the products we use daily would be off the market. Not only would our food source be gone, but also other high demand products ranging from pharmaceuticals to makeup would be in short supply. Julie Borlaug, the granddaughter of Norman Borlaug, who is known as the father of the green revolution, says that people don’t always appreciate what the agriculture industry has to offer.
“My grandfather and so many before him fought so hard to move us from an agrarian society of the late 1800’s, early 1900’s to where we are today and it seems that the general public does not understand that role of agriculture, doesn’t appreciate it,” Borlaug said. “They have the ability to have the roads, the leisure time, their hobbies, their Facebook and all of that because of what these people did before us and how we were able to move from agrarian to more industrialized.”
As associate director of external relations at the Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture at Texas A&M University, Borlaug uses the passion passed down from her grandfather to help other countries develop their agriculture systems.
“When you go out to the field they want all the tools, they need all the solutions. It’s just getting it to them and getting the approval process and all the legal entities in each country set up,” Borlaug said. “They need a regulatory body that can study the science and then approve it and move it forward.”
The Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture has helped with hands on training and extension in Rwanda, South Sudan, Congo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Guatemala and Indonesia.
Although Borlaug works with other countries in improving their agricultural systems, she doesn’t forget about what needs improving here in the U.S.
“I think we in the ag sector, including media, are partially to blame because we’ve taken the agreement of innovation and agriculture and the role of modern agriculture, including GMO’s, as a scientific argument that the general public does not understand,” Borlaug said. “We need to retool our entire message. Our messaging needs to be on a more emotional appeal so we start gaining acceptance and actually have conversations.”
Borlaug says consumer misperceptions of agriculture can be cleared up simply by having conversations.
“When we actually have conversations, it needs to be with moms, it needs to be with the anti-science group, it needs to be with the environmentalist,” Borlaug said. “It also needs to be with students because high school students and university students have this anti-corporate, anti-innovation idea about agriculture, yet they won’t get off their iPhones. So I think just re-messaging and stepping back and using a more emotional appeal will win the day.”
Through this approach, controversial topics such as GMO’s can be clarified as well.
“We need to have just a basic conversation of what GMO’s are not,” Borlaug said. “They’re not chemicals added to the food, they’re not responsible for obesity and processed food. A GMO is a seed. It helps the farmer grow. What happens once the crop is harvested and turned over is the responsibility of those food companies and other people. Those are not the seed companies or anything.”
Borlaug equates the anti-GMO anti-science backlash to the anti-vaccination movement of the past.
“I think in ten years we’re going to look at ourselves and think ‘what were we thinking?’”
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