New numbers are out from the Arizona Farm Bureau, but they have nothing to do with new production. It’s part of a research project in partnership with the University of Arizona to monitor and debunk misinformation.
It turns out Arizonans eat about 30 percent of food produced by Arizona farms and 18 percent of foods processed by the state. That’s according to Ashley Kerna, economics analyst at the University of Arizona.
“We were able to do a quick and dirty analysis in a few days with data already available,” Kerna said.
Kerna pulled data from government statistics, already published. She and her team were asked to by the Arizona Farm Bureau after recent concerns that different numbers, wrong numbers, spread about Arizona agriculture.
“If you try to track down where the number originally came from, there’s no source,” said University of Arizona Professor George Frisvold. He said research requests are changing as consumers care increasingly more about where products and services are made.
“People are looking at trade more as people are winning and losing," Frisvold said. "You know, and if people are buying things they want and need from somebody else, it’s like everybody is gaining."
He said numbers are published on the internet and elsewhere about production that are wrong, that debunking is now a part of the job.
