The Rise of the Agromyther
Why Urban Myths About Agriculture Create Real Risks for Global Food Supply Chains and Why Organizations Must Correct Them Now
The Birth of the Agromyther
Every industry has a blind spot.
In global agriculture and food supply chains, that blind spot has a name. Not a person. Not a movement. A trap.
The Agromyther mindset.
It appears when smart, well-intentioned people advocate about agriculture, sourcing and sustainability without the agronomic, biological or field context needed to understand real trade-offs.
This mindset exists because modern life made food production almost invisible. When 98 percent of society does not produce food, when algorithms reward outrage over accuracy, and when complexity is replaced by moral certainty, myths feel more intuitive than science.
The Agromyther is not just someone out there. It is a pattern. A shortcut anyone can fall into when distance replaces understanding.
I know because I have many friends and family that fell into it.
And that is exactly why the corporate world must confront it now. The future of global agriculture and supply resilience depends on it.
What the Agromyther Mindset Really Looks Like
The Agromyther mindset is not an ideology. It is a form of oversimplification that cuts across societies, functions, sectors and continents.
It appears when strong opinions about sustainable sourcing, procurement, climate action or agricultural risk are shaped without field experience or agronomic grounding.
It shows up when a policy advisor drafts rules without consultation with producers. When a journalist interprets crop systems through an urban lens. When a sustainability team compresses complex transitions into slogans. When executives set sourcing targets from thousands of kilometers away.
None of this is malicious. It is the unintended consequence of a world disconnected from soil reality.
But the impact on supply chains is real. Sometimes costly. Increasingly strategic.
Especially for companies sourcing from Latin America and other high-relevance producing regions such as Africa and Asia.
The Comfortable Lie of Sustainable Food in Europe
Beyond Harvest is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
The Myths That Distort Reality And Why They Mislead Organizations
Agromyths feel harmless on social media. Until they become the basis for sourcing rules, ESG frameworks, reporting decisions, or regulatory pressure.
Below are the most powerful myths that distort how companies interpret risk, sustainability and agricultural performance.
Myth 1: “Pesticides are always bad.”
Reality: Toxicity, purpose and dose vary widely.
Business impact: Overly rigid policies increase yield instability and supply volatility.
Myth 2: “Conventional farming is harmful and organic is safe.”
Reality: Organic systems also use pesticides; safety comes from management, regulation and agronomy.
Business impact: Label-driven sourcing increases cost without improving real risk management.
Myth 3: “GMOs are dangerous.”
Reality: GM crops are among the most studied technologies in the world.
Business impact: Avoiding biotech reduces resilience and operational efficiency.
Myth 4: “Industrial agriculture is bad.”
Reality: Modern agriculture is scientific, data-driven and essential for feeding populations.
Business impact: Rejecting scale undermines sustainability goals such as reduced land use and lower emissions.
Myth 5: “Brazil equals deforestation.”
Reality: Brazil preserves two-thirds of its territory, and illegal deforestation is not representative of legitimate production.
Business impact: Penalizing entire regions weakens diversification and increases dependence on fewer origins.
Myth 6: “Sustainability is only carbon.”
Reality: Soil health, water, biodiversity, income, logistics and governance matter just as much.
Business impact: Carbon-only strategies miss the risks that actually disrupt supply chains.
Myth 7: “Just switch to regenerative.”
Reality: Regeneration requires knowledge, investment, adaptation and time.
Business impact: Slogan-driven timelines create supplier fatigue and unrealistic expectations.
Myth 8: “Consumers want only organic, local and chemical-free.”
Reality: Real behavior is driven by price, convenience and availability.
Business impact: Strategies built on stated preference misallocate resources.
Myth 9: “Europe is safe; Latin America is risky.”
Reality: Risk depends on systems, not geography.
Business impact: Geographic prejudice leads to poor sourcing diversification and misclassification of risk.
The Contradictions Behind Agromyth Thinking
Simplistic narratives collapse when confronted with agricultural reality.
Here are the contradictions that quietly shape public pressure and corporate decision-making:
Rejecting pesticides while demanding flawless produce.
Rejecting efficiency while depending on abundant, low-cost food.
Fearing GMOs while trusting biotech in medicine.
Calling for organic farming while ignoring the economic trade-offs.
Criticizing Brazilian agriculture while consuming Brazilian products daily.
Advocating short supply chains while buying globally produced goods.
Demanding carbon neutrality while resisting the technologies that reduce emissions.
Demonizing monocultures while depending on the same crops that feed humanity.
These contradictions do not make people wrong.
They make systems fragile.
Why the Agromyther Mindset Is a Real Risk for Global Supply Chains
The Agromyther mindset influences boardrooms, ESG discussions, investing, reporting, policy and procurement. It does not act on the soil. It acts on perception. And perception drives decisions.
This is where the damage happens.
1. It drives superficial or misaligned decisions
Absolute targets without feasibility.
Supplier disengagement without context.
Sustainability frameworks designed for optics, not resilience.
Binary thinking that ignores agronomy.
2. It creates phantom reputational risk
Noise becomes more important than evidence.
Companies overinvest in cosmetic initiatives and underinvest in resilience.
3. It fractures internal alignment
Procurement, sustainability, marketing, compliance and investors pull in different directions.
Execution slows. Supply stability suffers.
4. It confuses compliance with resilience
Certificates replace governance.
PDFs replace field intelligence.
Reporting replaces strategy.
5. It distorts understanding of agricultural trade-offs
Agriculture is a system of trade-offs.
Agromyth thinking treats trade-offs as moral failures.
6. It widens the distance between consuming markets and producing regions
Misunderstanding grows.
Trust erodes.
Investment hesitates.
Suppliers disengage.
This is especially severe for companies sourcing from developing geographies.
7. It replaces strategy with emotion
Where supply chains need evidence, data and agronomy, they get slogans, binaries and unrealistic demands.
Emotion becomes louder than execution.
The Anti-Agromyth Manifesto
Correcting Agromyths is not a cultural dispute.
It is a strategic requirement for global supply chains.
Here is what leaders need to remember:
Complexity is not a flaw. It is the system.
Food does not grow on opinions.
Agronomy should shape sustainability, not the other way around.
Farmers are stewards of living systems, not caricatures and villains.
Evidence beats emotion. Always.
Nuance is a competitive advantage in supply-chain strategy.
Distance is a risk factor that must be managed.
Trade-offs are part of truth.
Impact matters more than narrative safety.
This is the foundation of supply resilience and sustainable sourcing.
Conclusion: Why Ending the Agromyther Mindset Is a Business Imperative
The next decade of global food systems will be shaped by volatility: climate, regulation, geopolitics, transparency requirements, origin competition and shifting expectations for sustainability.
In this world, oversimplified narratives are liabilities.
They distort risk.
They exaggerate threats.
They misclassify suppliers.
They drain resources from what creates impact and redirect them to what creates applause.
Ending the Agromyther mindset is not about protecting farmers.
It is about strengthening food security, improving sourcing decisions and ensuring companies operate on evidence, not noise.
The trap will always exist.
The task is ensuring it does not influence the decisions that define the future of global agriculture and global supply chains.
Naming it is the first step.
Correcting it is the strategic one.
Thanks for that post. Good rational thinking. If only people could really think things through, practically...