While teaching in the 1980s, I used an education film called Berfunkle. I can no longer access the short animation, but memory tells me it was creative, clever, and focused on semantics. It used a nonsense term—berfunkle—to demonstrate the pitfalls of ambiguous definitions and slanted connotations. A word can be misused and misinterpreted—it can mean different things to different people.
Nowadays certain food and agriculture words are getting berfunkled. Terms such as organic, biotech, natural, sustainable, factory farm, genetically engineered, free range (and many more) are twisted around according to someone’s slant. Agendas get promoted while plenty of people still suffer from poor nutrition or outright starvation.
The good news is that many other people are simply embracing best practices. They look for science-based, environmentally sound production techniques to provide nutritious, abundant food for a hungry world.
Ag/Science Research Publications
Food Production Techniques and Presentations
In some parts of the world, positive steps are occurring, and agriculture is leading the way. But the needs are still constant and vital. Hungry people can’t eat words no matter what spin is applied to them. Terms are one thing, but best practices—regardless of their names—are the key. No need to berfunkle around with global food security.
by dan gogerty (top graphic from 123rf.com)