An Iowa newspaper published a full-throated response from NAAA CEO Andrew Moore after one of its opinion writers wrote a distorted column that unfairly suggests the costs of aerial application outweigh its benefits to agriculture and society.
What Moore was especially piqued about is that he spoke at length to the writer, Austin Wu, an editorial fellow at The Gazette of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In return, Wu discarded or questioned much of what Moore had to say during the interview and turned to university “agricultural experts” to vet some of the benefits Moore mentioned. Wu’s opinion piece was published under the headline, “Missing the field for crops: discussions on aerial application.” Two weeks later, The Gazette’s editors published Moore’s response under the headline “Ag aviation facts contradict columnist’s narrative.”
Moore wrote that “Wu spun a web of words that deceptively attempts to bait a reader to believe the industry is a culprit of Iowa’s loss of natural lands, global warming and for jeopardizing human health.” NAAA’s CEO ended his published rebuttal with a parting shot:
[Aerial Application] is a form of application that has been vital to crop, forestry and human health protection for over 100 years because of its effectiveness, and because it evolves technologically. Wu was informed about this. Unfortunately he took a deceptive approach—one that harms his profession’s reputation, not that of the professionals who are aerial applicators.
Moore’s full response is available here.
