What can be done to root out rumors that hurt farmers?

From time to time, food safety rumors are not only an infringement on the interests of agricultural practitioners and consumers, but also a blow to the enthusiasm of food safety work, which is not conducive to the construction of health and safety relationship from field head to dinner table. Therefore, efforts must be made in many ways and measures must be taken to put an end to rumors hurting farmers as soon as possible.

A grape variety that has gone through continuous technological research encounters "Black September"; a cooperative that has developed through hardships loses as much as 1.6 million yuan a month; and a grape brand certified as "green food" is almost destroyed. Recently, the rumor of "sterility caused by seedless grapes" has once again aroused social concern.

From "Acetochlor in strawberries may cause cancer" to "cucumbers with thorns and flowers can lead to infertility", to this "sterility caused by seedless grapes", combing through previous rumors that hurt farmers, we will find that seemingly groundless conclusions, coupled with a "decent" sampling or a survey that looks like "there is a picture and a truth", it is easy to spread viral on the Internet and in moments. It eventually turned into a large-scale unsalable event of agricultural products.

Almost all of these rumors repeat the same path: rumors "online"-"onlookers" fear-unmarketable agricultural products, damage to farmers-media reports-experts refute rumors-the agricultural industry is struggling to recover. Then, get caught up in the next round of hot rumors. It is in this round of passivity, internal friction with the hope of industrial development, more step by step tearing apart the trust of the society.

Rumors lead to unmarketable agricultural products, which not only cause serious trauma to the interests and feelings of agricultural producers. In the long run, it is also a loss of consumers' rights and interests. In such a lose-lose outcome, it is society as a whole that will eventually pay the bill.

So why is there a market for such rumors? Analyzing the reasons for the emergence and rapid spread of rumors, it is easy to remind people of a joke, "Truth and lies bathe by the river." After washing the lie first, he wore the real clothes and left, and then the real person refused to put on the clothes of the lie. From then on, people can only see the lies of wearing real clothes, but they can no longer accept the truth that they can't get ashore for a long time. The reason why rumors always get ahead of the truth is largely because rumors do not need to talk about integrity, and the truth is too incapable of packaging and selling itself.

In recent years, more and more consumers begin to pursue the concept of healthy and safe food consumption. However, on the issue of identifying whether food is safe or not, there is a lack of professional and direct empirical knowledge, so we are eager to obtain true, accurate, transparent and timely information supply. Before they can't get it, some people can easily be misled by the hunger for information. On the other hand, when it comes to "eating", the vast majority of people tend to adopt a cautious attitude of "believing what they have rather than believing that they have nothing". This also reflects that there is still some catch-up space between the dissemination of food safety information and consumer demand.

On the other hand, the tendency of "anti-expert" and "anti-professional knowledge" in food safety rumors should be vigilant. In recent years, in the face of all kinds of public safety events, the credit authority of industry experts has been repeatedly questioned. It is true that questioning the expertise of experts reflects the rise of awareness of safe and healthy consumption rights and interests, but in the comments on the report of "sterility caused by seedless grapes", there are not a few netizens who refuse to discuss rationally because of questioning the authority of experts. This is particularly worth reflecting on-experts can be questioned, but there is no and no need to draw a line between science and reason. The rational exclusion caused by information asymmetry also reflects the necessity and urgency of strengthening scientific knowledge popularization and propaganda and guidance in the field of public safety, especially in the field of food safety.

It is undeniable that in recent years, China has taken more and more stringent measures to strengthen food safety, whether it is the government, enterprises, cooperatives, farmers and consumers, the strings of food safety are getting tighter and tighter. "work hard for more than half a year, once ruined in front of rumors." From time to time, food safety rumors are not only an infringement on the interests of agricultural practitioners and consumers, but also a blow to the enthusiasm of food safety work, which is not conducive to the construction of health and safety relationship from field head to dinner table. Therefore, efforts must be made in many ways and measures must be taken to put an end to rumors hurting farmers as soon as possible.

First of all, it is necessary to remove the soil caused by rumors, always take strengthening food safety as the fundamental, and constantly improve the level of food safety. Only by providing safe and healthy agricultural products to reassure consumers, will there be no survival soil for rumors around food safety. The government, the media, food processing enterprises, and agricultural producers should work together to strictly abide by the relevant state laws and regulations, and standardize all aspects of the food industry chain with "the most stringent standards, the strictest supervision, the harshest punishment, and the most serious accountability" to ensure "safety on the tip of the tongue."

Secondly, it is necessary to build a positive interaction among the government, the public, the media and expert think tanks, and constantly enhance the effectiveness of dialogue among all parties. Professional forces should be organized to release information in a timely manner, and at the same time, in conjunction with professional organizations, innovative forms should be made to publicize food safety, so as to help the public improve their ability to discern rumors and make professional knowledge better accessible to the public.

Finally, it is necessary to severely crack down on the source of food safety rumors and let rumors bear their due legal responsibility. Although the Food Safety Law defines the public welfare publicity and media supervision responsibilities of social media, it lacks punitive measures for rumors in the field of food safety. It is suggested that punitive measures against food safety rumors should be formulated in accordance with the Criminal Law and the Public Security Administration punishment Law, so that rumor mongers do not dare to spread rumors.