Why do so many people believe the claim that seedless grapes cause infertility?
Recently, the rumor that seedless grapes are seedless because they were dipped in contraceptives has caused many "melon-eating spectators" to panic, and sales of seedless grapes in some production areas have even been affected as a result. Fortunately, experts debunked the rumor in time, which alleviated the negative impact to a certain extent.
In recent years, the sensational rumors circulating in daily life have often been related to agricultural products. For example, cooking with vegetable oil can cause cancer, cucumbers with prickles and flowers can cause infertility, and eating strawberries can cause cancer. Some rumors that could be distinguished as true or false based on simple common sense have also been widely spread, and agricultural products have become a disaster area plagued by rumors.
Behind believing rumors is irrationality, but we should also pay attention to the reasons this irrationality arises. Sudan red, tainted milk powder, gutter oil... In recent years, agricultural product safety incidents have occurred from time to time, leaving a psychological shadow on many consumers. So once a rumor about food safety appears, many people's first reaction is to believe it exists rather than believe it does not. Indeed, of the seven daily necessities, firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar and tea, agricultural product safety is closely tied to everyone's vital interests, and as consumption levels continue to rise, it is understandable that ordinary people pay more attention to the health and safety of agricultural products. But why do some absurd rumors make many people firmly believe them? Because distinguishing rumors indeed requires certain professional knowledge, but many consumers lack channels to understand information about all links in agriculture - the production link, how much chemical fertilizer and pesticide were used; the transportation link, whether preservation meets standards; the processing link, whether harmful chemicals have been added - none of these are very clear. On the topics the masses care about most, when true, accurate, transparent and timely information supply is insufficient, some people will naturally believe rumors because of information hunger.
It should be said that consumers' doubts about agricultural product safety reflect, to a certain extent, progress in consumption concepts. The public's increased awareness of safeguarding their own rights and interests can also play a certain role in social supervision, forcing improvement in the quality and safety of agricultural products. However, if things go too far, if people blindly chase shadows, readily believe rumors, and even spread or fabricate them, the social harm caused cannot be underestimated. Incorrect information will affect consumers' choices. For farmers, the fermentation of rumors will affect sales of agricultural products, and even the fruits of a year's hard work will pile up at the edge of the fields and rot on the trees. Just like last year's "eating strawberries causes cancer," which exploded on WeChat Moments, strawberry prices plunged, and Beijing growers suffered losses as high as tens of millions of yuan.
To eliminate rumors, the most fundamental thing is to weave a dense safety guarantee network for agricultural products. Providing safe agricultural products and reassuring consumers should be a concept running through the entire agricultural production process, and should also be a principle that all participants must abide by. As agricultural production and business operators, whether ordinary farmers or new types of production and business entities, all should start from themselves, start from details, attach importance to quality, ensure safety, and use practical actions to dispel consumers' concerns and build confidence. The government should change the supervision of agricultural product quality and safety from multi-department management to joint cooperation among relevant departments, establish a full-chain traceability system from field to table, and let a transparent and efficient system escort agricultural product safety.
To eliminate rumors, information asymmetry should also be reduced. On the one hand, the government should strengthen its awareness of information release, implement a regular information release mechanism, and reduce trust crises caused by missing information; on the other hand, it should help the public improve their ability to distinguish rumors. Increasing the public's knowledge reserve and scientific literacy is an important task of science popularization. Agricultural science popularization cannot be absent. It is necessary to identify the issues the masses care about most and use new media and other various forms to make science popularization more interesting, so that the public is willing to participate and happy to accept it. Only in this way can their "antibodies" against rumors be strengthened.
In addition, agricultural production and business operators should also pay attention to improving the transparency of production information. At present, many people have begun to explore this: by developing sightseeing and leisure agriculture, letting consumers walk into the fields, and through adoption, customization, picking and other ways, participating in the life cycle of agricultural products; some also use "Internet Plus" to solve the problem, letting consumers scan QR codes in supermarkets to obtain information about the product in each link. These practices all help consumers develop trust because they understand.
In a risk society, one move affects the whole body. A rumor in the online world often affects farmers' livelihoods and residents' dining tables. We must make efforts in multiple directions to let the truth run ahead of rumors.