I did not watch the Grammys, but did not have to in order to learn about the Chipotle controversy.  Shortly after the ad for Chipotle Mexican Grill aired, my social media channels exploded with outraged ag folks venting on the commercial that discredited modern agriculture. The posts were filled with outrage over the misrepresentation of farmers in the ad and the misinformation conveyed to consumers. While I agree the ad was extremely offensive to most farmers and misrepresented modern food production, after some reflection and a few interesting developments, I have come to the conclusion this ad may have done more good than harm.

First the ad was masterfully done. Using simple graphics and powerful music, it evokes an emotional response. For me, the emotional response was revulsion and a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.  But for most consumers, it likely evoked a feeling of sympathy.  With Willie Nelson singing “Oh, take me back to the start,”  the ad makes untrue statements about how our food is produced today and suggests our food would be better and safer if we went back to the way it used to be produced: free range and natural. The ad implies that this kind of food is what is served in Chipotle restaurants.  It also shows a farmer being sad about modern agricultural methods and knocking down the barns and setting the animals free. While this ad has produced some righteous ag outrage, I would like to suggest a different perspective.

First of all, keep in mind that this was not an attack on agriculture or farmers. This commercial costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to make and hundreds of thousands of dollars to place in the Grammys. This investment was made to sell a restaurant image and perhaps sell few more tacos.  Farmers and agriculture are simply being used to set this chain apart from their competition. The commercial was not designed to scare people about the food they eat but to scare people into this restaurant that they say is different and better.

What the commercial was not intended to do was to get people to ask, “Is this all true?” Yet, that is what many people did. Today’s consumer is very cynical and skeptical of almost all claims made in advertising.  Americans are bombarded all day every day with thousands of advertising messages.  As a result, most people have learned to tune out much of the noise. A good portion of those who viewed this ad were amused by the cute graphics and totally missed the point of the ad.  Others got the point and reacted by asking, “Is this true?” This is just the question we want them to ask! When people ask an honest question about food, that is our opportunity to tell them what really happens on a farm.

For several days after the Grammy incident, I heard many stories of farm folks being approached by their city neighbors asking how food is produced.  An Illinois farm girl who is attending my college alma mater, a liberal arts college in the heart of the Chicago suburbs, was approached by staff members asking her about the Chipotle ad. She was able to share the truth about agriculture and farmers with the very people Chipotle was trying to brainwash.

The important part of this scenario is having farm folks who have relationships with nonfarm friends and are willing to speak up at the right moment. There is nothing we can do to stop the anti-agriculture scaremonger messages in the media.  We can, however, connect with people in our world and engage them in a dialogue about food and agriculture.  As for what you should do when these commercials show up on your favorite show, I suggest that yelling at the television really loud helps.

Google has recently announced a new project called Solving for X. This is a project aimed at solving the world’s biggest problems.  Their plan is to bring the “best” minds in the world together to work on radical solutions.  “Moon shot” thinking is what they call it. They want to use technology and innovation to come up with big solutions that seem impossible.  They are looking for far out ideas on education, climate change, world hunger, energy, and why there are only 8 buns in a package when hot dogs are sold in packs of 10.  My first reaction was “Oh great, here are a bunch of geeks and academics trying to figure out how the real world works.” But I will have to admit that Google was started by two socially awkward geeks from Stanford who dreamed up a new algorithm in a garage off campus, and then went on to change the world. So perhaps they are on to something.

Energy, food production, hunger, water resource management, nutrition, and transportation are all on the list of things the Xers are planning on working on. According to news reports, the work is being done at a super secret labs scattered around the world.  Progress reports are posted as videos on You Tube.  Besides sounding like the plot for the next James Bond movie, a few of these video messages have been posted. While interesting, they are not exactly entertaining nor likely to go viral, like the sheep herding rabbit. One dealt with an idea to provide enough clean water for the whole world. It postulates a theory on how to efficiently convert all types of water into clean fresh water that could be used to grow crops, feed people, and make ethanol.  Water availability is a serious issue in many developing countries and in key agricultural production areas of the US.  The video presentation is also a great sleep aid.  Five minutes into this video and you will be sound asleep.

While it remains to be seen if Solving for X really comes up with any ideas that work, they have already made one major contribution toward problem solving. They are putting the focus on the solution not the problem.  Too often we focus on the problem, feeding billions of people around the world or the family down the street. We think of the energy in terms of policy and technology barriers. We look at the environment as a global issue requiring an international response. By focusing on the problem, we miss the solution. While the brains at Google have identified that the solution should be the focus, they have  based their program on the false assumption that the solution is technical in nature and that the solution does not currently exist. Neither is true.

The solution to the majority of the world’s biggest problems is simple and obvious, but oh so hard to implement. The solution is caring. If each of us simply made solving some of these issues a high personal priority,  big things would happen. What if you bought an extra bag of food at the store next week and dropped it off at a food pantry on your way home? What is you donated the proceeds from one acre of land to a hunger relief project or donated even 1% of your annual income to a program like Heifer that helps people around the world grow their own food? What if you started using only e-85 or biodiesel fuel in all your vehicles?  Individually, your actions would have only a small impact — but if hundreds of thousands of us started taking those actions, the change would be revolutionary.

But that is the X, getting everyone to make solving problems a personal priority.

Say it can’t be done? A few weeks ago millions of people and thousands of businesses spent hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of man hours putting on the biggest party in the nation. What if even 10% of the financial resources and personal commitment that went into putting on the Super Bowl went into solving a problem?  Now that is real “moon shot” thinking.

The brain trust at Google needs to get out of their secret labs and figure out how to get individuals to get as serious about solving the world’s problems as they are about entertaining themselves (that includes video games, facebooking, and You Tube watching). The solution for X does not lay in an  equation or theory, but rather in each of our hearts.

Gary Truitt

Again this year, Right to Work legislation brought noisy and poorly-behaved protesters to the Indiana Statehouse. The issue, which paralyzed the state legislature last year, was again disruptive but did not paralyze the process. The bill was eventually passed and signed by the Governor. At the same time, a Right to Farm bill was being advanced by lawmakers with much less publicity but just as much demagoguery. The two issues are similar; both deal with an individual’s right to go to work without a union or special interest telling him he can’t.

Most of the news coverage on the Right to Work issue has focused on loud and disruptive union-organized protests.  Most have not mentioned that Indiana is not the first state to pass such a law but rather the 23^rd. Also, little coverage has been given to those workers would be fired or not hired because they were not union members without the new law. Likewise, much of the rhetoric on the Right to Farm law has been equally disingenuous.

The Right to Farm law does two simple and specific things. It provides an established farm with a legal defense when a lawsuit is filed by neighbors claiming it is a nuisance which is a very real issue in communities where housing developments have been erected next to a farm. The residents then complain about the farm which may have been there for over 100 years.  This part of the law simply says the problem did not come to the homeowners, the homeowners came to the problem.

The second part of the law says, if a farm is sued, the court must determine if the suit has grounds or if it was filed “frivolously, maliciously, or groundlessly.” If the court finds the latter is the case, the plaintiff can be required to pay all court and legal costs of the farmer. This part of the law was needed because activist groups have been using the legal system to harass farming operations of which they did not approve.  In fact, one Indiana law firm in particular has developed a very lucrative practice of suing livestock operations as part of an anti-CAFO campaign.

Not surprisingly, these radical environmental groups have attacked the legislation and are telling consumers it will prevent them from taking action against polluters. The Hoosier Environmental Council states that the Right to Farm bill would “have the effect of shutting the door of the courthouse to Hoosier families living near confined animal feeding operations.”  “This is a belts and suspenders approach to protecting CAFOs who do not wish to be good neighbors,” said Kim Ferraro, HEC’s director of water and agricultural policy. “This bill is a redundant and a blatant attempt to prevent equal access to the courts.”

In reality, the bill does no such thing. This narrow legislation would not prevent anyone from taking an operation to court if they have proof the operation is breaking the law or damaging the environment. Having proof is the basis of our legal system; and, if you have proof, you can go to court.

HEC does not seem to believe that certain types of farming operations have the right to exist. Its basic assumption is that, if you are a big livestock feeding operation, you must be doing something wrong and harming the environment. This measure simply insures that a farming operation has the right to exist and farm the way it wants, as long as it is within local, state, and federal regulations.

HEC is quick to point out it is not against farmers, just certain types of farmers. “HEC supports farmers who raise grass-fed livestock in sustainable operations that are economically viable; protect or enhance the environmental quality of the agricultural lands; and increase the quality of life for farmers and those people who live nearby.”

Just as the union protestors only want to give the right to work to people who carry union cards, HEC and its ilk only want to give the right to farm to farmers who farm the way in which they approve.  The Right to Farm Bill is expected to pass the legislature, and I hope the Governor will sign it with as much haste as he did the Right to Work bill.