• Natural carcinogens are present in mushrooms, parsley, basil, celery, cola, coffee, wine, beer, mustard, peanut butter and lima beans, just to name a few foods.
• The risk of developing cancer from consuming all major pesticides (through minute residues in food) in a typical diet is thousands of times less than the risk associated with natural carcinogens in beer, wine and cola.
• In 1950, chemicals could be detected at the level of one part per million (equivalent to one minute in two years). Today, we can measure many chemicals at the one part per trillion level…and our instrumentation technology continues to advance.
• “Pesticides don’t show up in dangerous levels. No one has yet been sick or killed by any pesticide that’s been found on a food.”—Dr. C. Everett Koop, former U.S. Surgeon General.
• In 1960, one farmer fed 25 people. Today, one farmer feeds 129 (101 in the U.S. and 28 overseas).
• The earth’s population is expected to double to 11 billion by the year 2050, which will require that each farmer be twice as productive.
• American families enjoy the cheapest, most abundant food supply in the world. We spend from 8-10% of our total income on food.
• Only 7% of the earth’s surface is currently available for agricultural production.
• Pests destroy one-third of all food crops planted globally.
• Ag retailers, supply tools to farmers and look out for their local communities, play a major role in soil and water resource management. Proper soil stewardship keeps soil in place and productive. Good farming practices help keep surface and groundwater supplies clean and clear.
• The average life expectancy in the U.S. today is 75 years, compared with 70 years in 1960, 60 years in 1930 and 47 years in 1900.
• Without pesticides and fertilizers, U.S. farm exports would fall to zero. Our balance of trade would drop by more than $4 billion, and millions of people around the world would starve.
• “The whole world is chock full of carcinogens. A beer, with its 700 parts per billion of formaldehyde and 5 parts per hundred of alcohol is 1,000 times more hazardous than anything in the water”—Dr. Bruce Ames, University of California, Berkeley.
Reprint permission given by AgAir Update, P.O. Box 850, Perry, GA 31069 - an international agricultural aviation publication.
Return to Spreading the Facts