So each side comes to the table with very strongly held views and the idea
of the myth of science being neutral to me is a scientific abstraction put
forward
by many in the scientific community that allows them to keep a hands off
above the battle that is going on. It also results in supporting the
status quo. This has been going on for a long time and I can see the
result very clearly. Loss of farms, consolidation of agribusiness, very
poor income for farmers, environmental problems, decimated rural
communities and all the litany of problems associated with conventional
agriculture. We are often given the figure of one farmer growing enough
to feed 80 to 90 people or whatever the number is yet many farmers today
cannot make it on their own farms economically with out income from off the
farm. We all know it and we know that as now practiced it is not
sustainable in the long term.
That is what practicing value free neutral science has achieved. All the
problems of today cannot be laid at the door step of science but value free
science has helped moved the agenda to where we are today so in my opinion
it is part of the problem. Science with out values will not help-our
science should work or compliment our values. If someone had done a
survey 40 years ago and asked people in the land grant system if they hoped
there work would result in what we have today I suspect many at that time
would have rejected much of what we now have. So it seems to me that we
have ended up like to old saying of Yogi Berra who said "If you do not know
where you are headed you are going to end up at some other place. We are
at this some other place and I think it is because we have let science and
policy go kind of willy-nilly without thinking about where we want to end
up.
I have been at this games professionally since the 60's and I have worked
at both universities and for industry. In the process of trying to operate
with respect to pushing or selling products or ideas I have always thought
about whether I could sit across the kitchen table from my parents and try
to convince them that this product or idea would be good for them or the
community that they lived in. In this personal way of operating I have no
problem pushing the ideas of sustainability or raising very serious
questions about many of the approaches that are now being pushed by the bio
tech people.
I think it is necessary to look at the response we provide to farmers in a
systems contest. I think the bottom line information they need is that the
risk to them economically could be very serious if they cannot sell their
grain and that checking the elevator during the season after the seed is in
the ground is fruitless. It is like shutting the door after the horse is
out.
I also think we have to have the courage to say it the way we see it in as
strong a language with as much good information and clear thinking as is
possible.
If we do not we will continue down the road to some other place- a place we
would not have planned to go.
So in the end for me at least it is more about values than science.
Science can be a tool to help us go where we want to go or it can lead us
to some other place.
Bill Liebhardt
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