Don't Follow the Flock
About this episode
Dr. Sylvain Charlebois discusses myths in agriculture and the implications of media and cultural attitudes on public understanding.
Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University and host of Canada's top-rated food podcast, joins Dan to work through three myths agriculture keeps being handed and rarely gets to push back on. The conversation covers the UN's April 2026 downward revision of worst-case climate scenarios and what it reveals about Canadian media's relationship with the science; gene editing's potential and the transparency failure that will determine whether the public accepts it; and the cultural cost of Canada's fear of failure, anchored by a Purdue lunch table where half the ag entrepreneurs present had declared bankruptcy at least once. Woven through all three: Sylvain's argument that the media, academia, and Ottawa have each developed a conformity problem that is leaving Canadians less informed about food and agriculture than they need to be.
More episodes of Growing the Future
- What AI Changed for Them: Four Operators, 30 Days In
- Late Crop Right Call Greg Patterson & Darren Fisher
- State of Iron: Who Owns Your Tractor?
- Why Aren't You Doing It All?
- Renewable Diesel Is About to Eat 10% of the Canola Crop
- Everything in Time with Kate Sauser
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Growing the Future podcast page.