| Infectious disease experts are wringing their hands in fear as avian flu continues to spread around the world. Headlines predict pandemic disaster and death to billions of people.
Yet there is a far more contagious disease which is far more pervasive and already infects a good portion of the world’s population: ignorance.
Defined by the dictionary as the lack of information, knowledge or awareness, ignorance has been infecting the editorial pages of Indiana newspapers in relation to the subject of agriculture and renewable fuels.
On March 3, an editorial by the Indianapolis Star called on the state to embrace the “new economy.” They defined the new economy as one based on technology and entrepreneurism. The Hoosier state ranked 32nd in this area.
The Star criticized Hoosier leaders for being slow to abandon the “old days when manufacturing and agriculture generated most of the paychecks.”
While I am not sure how, the folks at the Star have missed the technological and entrepreneurial revolution that has been taking place in Indiana agriculture for the past two years. Billions of dollars of new investment has brought jobs to rural Indiana and has doubled the price of the state’s leading grain crop, corn.
Indiana has garnered national and international attention for the new approaches and advancements that have taken place in the area of renewable energy. The Star said the state needs a workforce able to “compete in the new economy.”
I’ll bet the Star staff never imagined that high-tech workforce would wear seed corn hats and drive GPS-controlled combines worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. To say this technological revolution transforming agriculture, an industry that accounts for 20 percent of the state’s |
