On January 7, 2018 I will moderate a fireside chat with Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, a professor at the University of Toronto, a clinical psychologist and the author of 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, at the American Farm Bureau Annual Convention. He will be addressing hundreds of U.S. farmers on the topic of ‘The Danger of Allowing Ideologies to Grow Unopposed’.

During this session, Dr. Peterson will discuss, in plain language, the anti-science political ideologies being propagated in universities and among tax-supported environmental NGOs. This candid discussion will focus on how agriculture has historically been the target of ideological movements and how farmers can respond to the looming challenges building on the horizon.

I want to talk about why I helped connect Dr. Peterson to the American Farm Bureau.

About four years ago, I accepted an invitation to interview for the position of Director of Millennial Engagement at Monsanto. When I drove onto their St. Louis campus I was immediately disappointed. From all the things that I had heard, I thought I was coming to a dark and ominous place. I imagined I was on an adventure to explore Mordor. I pictured a towering 80-story black building with gloomy storm clouds gathering at the top and people walking around with black suits and matrix style sunglasses.

Walking to the front door, I was greeted by a woman named Holly. She wore her hair in a pony tail and sported a turtle neck sweater. I could barely believe how anti-climactic the adventure had become.

I was shown into a simple conference room and proceeded to interview with small teams of people who were not Nazgûls. There is something quite enjoyable about interviewing for a job you don't think you want. Instead of worrying about the questions they asked, I used every opportunity to ask my own about all the sinister rumors I had heard about their toxic products and business practices. I was using the interview as a chance see inside this walled city.

Holly joined me again for the close of the process, asking if I had any questions for her. "One," I said. "If this position is totally new for the company, how do you plan to train this Director of Millennial Engagement?" Holly paused, and then said something that completely changed my life.

"I'm committed to specializing our training based on the person we hire. Since you have been so curious about us during this interview, if we decide to hire you, I will draft a list of 50 people; chemists, biologists, geneticists, lawyers, agronomists, farmer customers. You will go meet with each of them for an hour. After, we will have a meeting to figure out what you do and don't know about agriculture. Then I will write another list of 50 people who can help you learn more."

Suddenly, the real opportunity for adventure came into focus. I didn't even think she realized what she was offering. I would be allowed to run around this maligned company, free to uncover their terrible deeds. If it turned out the company was as evil as everyone said, I could leave the company and write the greatest tell-all book of all time. But if this place was not as nefarious as everyone thought, then I would have a much tougher job: to change cultural perspective.

I am now on my 11th list put together by Holly and others. I have come to realize this is not the sinister place portrayed in documentaries, the media, and online. Hard-working scientists and farmers are growing food more bountifully and effectively than any time in human history. But we have been made to feel suspicious, afraid and angry about how it is grown.

I understood the fear of Monsanto and modern farming (GMOs, pesticides, industrial agriculture) was real, but I didn't know how insidious, coordinated and manipulative its opponents actually were. Relatively benign green campaigns of Chipotle and Patagonia have proliferated for years, but there is an even darker side.

I discovered that companies are donating to non-profit organizations like Protect Our Breasts that recruit earnest college women to tell victims and their families they could have avoided cancer if they had only avoided GMOs and specific farming chemicals. These smiling young volunteers hand out samples labeled with organic and non-GMO logos, suggesting that if their families had only bought the right products, they might not have developed cancer.

Fear of farmers, scientists, and agricultural is being cultivated for the profit of activist fronted corporate sponsors.

This drove me to speak passionately with farmers and scientists about what the world was hearing about their products. I have traveled around the country and parts of Europe to talk about why the fear has spread and what Monsanto learned by engaging a frightened public as we listened to their concerns and answered their questions. In the last 3 years, I have spoken to more than 50,000 people.

I have stayed motivated to keep learning, listening and discussing because I saw the same fear in others I had before I came to Monsanto. Fear that we should be buying more expensive organic food, fear that corporations are inherently hubristic and greedy, fear that the world was headed in the wrong direction. We have these fears because people we trusted told us to be afraid. But why?

Then I encountered Dr. Jordan Peterson, who opened my eyes to see that danger looming in the chaos of culture change.

About a year ago I came across a tall thin man with a voice like a Canadian Kermit the Frog putting videos out on YouTube. He was talking about what he considers a dangerous ideologies.

He is a compelling speaker with fascinating observations about mythologies and the structure of human personalities. I was deeply skeptical of his claims, but I found that he was willing to talk about subjects that no one else seemed to be having honest discussions about, like what makes a good friendship and how Millennials can change the world properly. I found that his words helped me confront dragons in my life that were keeping me from being disciplined, fit, close with my family, and to speak up in the workplace.

I dove deep, but after listening to one of Dr. Peterson’s lectures about Stalin's takeover of Russia, I began to notice similarities to the fear campaigns of organic and non-GMO activist groups.

These ideologues are holding extra-judicial kangaroo courts to accuse Monsanto of the most heinous of crimes like 'genocide' and 'ecocide.' They believe science not only can't help the world, but that the current structure of the world is tyrannical and should be torn down. These ideas are being taught in colleges across the world and are contributing to an environment where charlatans are able to make money off the fears of the uninformed and good modern farming techniques are maligned.

The fight for modern agricultural technologies is critically important. That is why I am so proud of the American Farm Bureau for inviting Dr. Peterson and I to have a fireside chat about how to oppose dangerous, anti-science ideologies. President Zippy Duvall and his amazing staff are attempting to bring diverse ideas to their farmers and while this is a controversial subject, their willingness shows their desire to meet the challenges of our day head on.

We will record the event and offer it to Dr. Peterson to publish on YouTube and if people are interested we can likely establish a live stream of the talk.

It is my sincere hope that he can help farmers develop an understanding of how to speak truth in a complex world where speaking up can make you a target. I asked Dr. Peterson to address how farmers can prepare their children to go to college with the skills needed to push back effectively on bad ideologies.

After having met Dr. Peterson in Toronto last month, I believe he is taking this opportunity to address the farmers very seriously. I have no doubt that the conversation will be deeply valuable and I hope that anyone at the conference will try to attend, and everyone else will be open to watching the video to see how Dr. Peterson addresses the American farmers.