Digging in: A YouTube star unpacks the battle between pseudoscience and science

Back in October, I was drawn to attend a talk by a UMaine graduate with over two million subscribers on YouTube. Two million! And his speciality was…archeology! Huh. I had to find out more.

That evening I went back to campus and saw Milo Rossi, otherwise known as Miniminuteman, self-described Archaeologist, Environmental Scientist, Author, and a Conspiracy Debunker. It was fun and inspiring.

The part I want to dig into here are his ideas about science communication, pseudoscience, and if and how they might apply in our area of shared interest - agroecology, food systems, sustainable agriculture.

I learned from Milo that many many people like to learn about, and be entertained by, archeology. Especially through videos and movies. I had no idea, but it does make sense. We crave the stories that tell us where we came from and who we are - both the factual ones and the myths.

This is great, except, as he pointed out, when the myths pretend to be science. Apparently there are many YouTubers, with even more followers than Rossi, who create flashy archeology videos, and present them as factual. And if you aren’t sticking to the facts, it is easier to keep things simple, and accessible.

Rossi tries to compete with all of this fake science. He creates entertaining videos explaining real historical events and places. He also debunks specific archeology conspiracy theories and pseudoscience. For example, the idea that “the earth is growing” or that there are “antarctic pyramids.” This enterprise is now his full time job.

So this got me thinking - are there pseudoscience influencers, or conspiracies, around agriculture or food production?

Since I don’t spend much time on YouTube, I started searching. I searched first for the most popular videos on Youtube with the word “agriculture”. The only trend I could see is that the most watched videos were of quirky agriculture-related technologies, such as automatic cow milking machines. Or, people doing funny things on farms, such as a silly stomping dance to plant potatoes.

I next searched for “sustainable agriculture.” The top hits were about hydroponics, and instructional videos on how to create your own farm. I also found this interesting one that profiles farms using agroforestry from a German broadcasting channel called Planet A, which had an impressive 788,000 views and over 1,000 comments.

There are also, not surprisingly, many nutrition videos of all kinds and all across the spectrum of pseudo to real science, but that may be a topic for another day?

I am interested in communication about where our food comes from, what farming is like, and food facts and labels related to production practices. Such as sustainable, regenerative, conventional, organic, free-range, big farm, small farm, family farm…all of those fun ones which sit somewhere between easy to explain and impossible to explain.

Are there conspiracy theories about how our food is produced? Or if not conspiracy, pseudoscience? Which ones are most prevalent or most problematic? I thought it would be easy to generate a list for this, since my perception is that there is a widespread lack of understanding about agriculture in the United States, and across most other western industrialized countries.

But it was harder than I thought. Here is what I came up with:

Food systems or agriculture pseudoscience:

1. Most farmers make a lot of money

2. Crop insurance covers all farmers in the US from financial harm

3. Big farms are productive and small farms are superfluous, or, the opposite

4. Genetically modified foods are dangerous to eat, or, the opposite

5. Pesticides are always harmful

6. “Conventional” farming is necessary to feed our large population

7. Organic food is always healthier

8. Food doesn’t have seasons, we can buy what we want to eat at the supermarket year round, and there aren’t any consequences to this. Strawberries in the winter are a basic right, right? :/

9. Climate change isn’t real (this one is definitely a widely held belief based on popular pseudoscience influencers, but it’s also bigger than just agriculture)

So are these ideas pseudoscience?

Except for that last one, they feel to me more like ideas that are too often presented as black and white, when the reality is much more complicated. Maybe the closest I can think of are some conspiracy theories around genetically modified foods - such as that eating them could make you sterile, or that big companies are planning to use them to take over certain countries’ seed supplies. But these aren’t widely believed.

In most cases, it’s a lack of enough information about farming, the technologies and policies and certifications available to farmers, and the impacts these choices have for the environment, and for our bodies.

There is also sometimes a mix-up between an approach or a product being inherently good or bad, when instead the good or bad is in the details. How is it used? How much? When? What steps are taken to mitigate damage? But getting into all of that…can take a while.

So how can we communicate these complexities more effectively? Is it possible to make the tradeoffs and complications of food production as simple, flashy or fun to watch, as videos about hidden pyramids? Shouldn’t where our food comes from be on the top hits list?

Rossi argued that we need more “generalists” who are good communicators. I think that agroecologists may in fact be the generalists of agriculture. So, what real science stories can we tell? How can we communicate?

If you have examples of well done science communication, either in agriculture or otherwise, share those below. If you know of any sustainable agriculture YouTube influencers, comment on those! (I will follow them, and share their videos, since I think I’d rather write than make videos myself.) Our group at UMaine recently learned about Dr. Eric Brennan’s channel, which is really quite good, but geared a bit more to farmers. He so far has over 4,000 subscribers.

And if you have ideas of agriculture-related pseudoscience that I’ve missed here, or suggested edits, share in the comments, let's make that list more complete.