Close your eyes and imagine grocery stores where produce costs triple, with a sparse selection and visible insect damage. This isn’t dystopian fiction—it’s a likely future if we turn away from the technologies that misinformation campaigns routinely demonize. While people readily fear ingredients in conventional foods after seeing alarming social media posts, they rarely visualize what abandoning modern agricultural practices would actually mean. The consequences would hit lower-income populations hardest, forcing even more difficult choices between malnutrition and unaffordable food.

[W]ithout modern pesticides, global crop losses would be staggering: an estimated 78 percent for fruits, 54 percent for vegetables, and 32 percent for cereals. These figures represent millions who can currently afford healthy food—thanks to technologies we risk abandoning.

The binary of natural equals good and processed equals bad oversimplifies a complex food landscape. As my research on risk perception shows, people gravitate toward simple narratives—but food safety, sustainability, and nutrition require nuance.

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