I believe that Neil Young has a heart of gold.
The singer/songwriter has been one of my favorite artists ever since his fourth album, “Harvest,” came out in 1972, when I was in college. I’ve never tired of his special, touching blend of sincerity and quirkiness.
But his latest album, “The Monsanto Years,” makes me sad. It reminds me once again what a lousy job we have done in communicating about our business and engaging in dialogue around science with the public.
Young suggests, for example, that our company is making life more difficult for farmers, that we bully them with lawsuits, and that we‘re all about greed. None of this is accurate.
The truth is that farmers are our customers, and our 22,000 employees focus on improving their operations and their lives. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t have those customers for long. They have many choices.
Farmers around the world are smart business people and they have adopted our genetically modified seeds faster than any new technology in agricultural history. Why? Because they work.
Dialogue based on reason rather than politics or ideology is an essential part of ensuring science’s viability and role within society.
Here’s an invitation to establish that dialogue with Neil Young. I invite him to visit our company and talk with us about what we’re doing. Then he can draw his conclusions based on firsthand observation and research. I think he will find that we have a lot more in common than he realizes. He might even find that a lot of us – this old man included – are a lot like he is.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: Neil Young: We’re More Like You than You Think
