by Denny Banister
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I am nothing short of amazed by e-mails I receive sharing "facts" discovered on the internet that just happen to fit the beliefs or assumptions of the person sending the e-mail. Misleading internet "facts" were the basis of an overabundance of e-mails I received prior to the November presidential election slamming both the conservative and liberal candidates.
Following the election, there was a welcome but, unfortunately, brief respite from the political propaganda. Now I am beginning to receive e-mails critical of the president-elect’s actions even before he has taken the oath of office. ENOUGH! Ooops, I guess that was already used by the president-elect in one of his speeches. In any case, I am very tired of misleading e-mails supported by internet "facts."
Anyone can create some "facts" for distribution on the internet. You can even Google my name and find a multitude of opinion columns and news stories I wrote – just because they are on the internet, does that make them factual? Uh, maybe it was not a good idea to use my own name as an example since I do not want readers to question the validity of my writing, just everyone else’s. It goes without saying everything I write is totally factual – mostly.
What set Banister off on this tangent you wonder? An e-mail I received recently from a friend of mine complained of all the money taxpayers are spending to provide farmers an income for not planting crops. His email contained proof of the claims from the internet.
I replied to my friend and explained the money some farmers receive not to plant has nothing to do with food production, but with soil conservation. Environmental groups pushed to establish the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) to prevent tillage of highly erodible farmland. These same environmental groups pushed to establish the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) to take these lands out of farm production and allow them to return to wetlands. Both the CRP and the WRP pay farmers to lease the property in question.
This is not the same as paying farmers not to produce food – it is paying farmers rent for some of their land. Yet some groups who lobbied for the CRP and WRP do nothing to address the misconceptions farmers are being paid not to produce food. Why? Because it suits their needs to promote such misconceptions. Some environmental groups have other agendas involving production agriculture, such as doing away with animal agriculture, or eliminating fertilizers and crop protectants farmers use.
If you question what I’m saying, soon this story will appear on the internet – and as we all know, everything on the internet is factual, right?
(Denny Banister, of Jefferson City, is the assistant director of public affairs for the Missouri Farm Bureau, the state’s largest farm organization.)