Big Food Is Trying to Dupe You Into Loving Industrial Agriculture
Moms campaigning to raise awareness of pesticide use in industrial agriculture are elitist control freaks; organic farming uses dangerous chemicals too. And those antibiotic-resistant superbugs you’ve been hearing about on factory farms? Don’t worry, the livestock industry has it all under control.
Those are just some of the demonstrably outrageous messages that have been cropping up across the media landscape in relation to the ongoing cultural conversation about the food we eat, how it's raised, and the effects it has on our health and the health of our environment. As more consumers than ever become aware of the staggering social and ecological costs associated with industrial-scale agriculture, they’ve increasingly been turning to things like organic and locally grown food. Guess who’s none too happy about that?
A report released Tuesday by Real Food Media Project, Friends of the Earth, and U.S. Right to Know details how ag-tech giants such as Monsanto, Dow Chemical and DuPont—not to mention corporate heavy-hitters ranging from Coca-Cola to General Mills and powerful lobbying groups such as the American Beverage Association and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association—are spending millions to try to dissuade consumers from leaving their products behind. They’re intent on assuring you, dear reader, that the chemically laden, environmentally destructive, cost-cutting, GMO-reliant system of industrial farming that dominates American agriculture is all A-OK.
But really, would you trust the CEO of Monsanto telling you that genetically modified crops are not just environmentally friendly but the answer to feeding the world’s hungry? Probably not. What about if that message came from the seemingly friendly folks at the “Center for Food Integrity”?
In an effort to take control of public opinion on issues ranging from the proposed mandatory labeling of GMO ingredients on food packaging to whether organic farming really is more sustainable, the conventional food industry is spending tens of millions of dollars a year trying to get inside your head. Its Trojan horse of choice? Front groups with often deceptively innocuous-sounding names—like Center for Consumer Freedom, Protect the Harvest or Alliance for Food, and Farming.
“The food industry is using a host of covert communication tactics to shape public opinion without most people realizing the stories are being shaped behind the scenes to promote corporate interests,” Anna Lappé, founder of the Real Food Media Project, said in a statement.
The eye-opening report can only just begin to document the extent to which these front groups, funded in most cases exclusively by the food corporations and overseen by boards of directors packed with industry insiders, are waging a stealth campaign to counter growing consumer wariness about conventional agriculture. Their tactics go far beyond supplying industry-friendly spokespeople as sources for journalists. The Alliance for Food and Farming, for example, launched a website, SafeFruitsandVeggies.com, that greets viewers with the message “Your fruits and veggies are safer than you think,” while Keep Food Affordable has sponsored conferences for the BlogHer Network with the intent of helping so-called mommy bloggers to “sort through the myths” and “gather third-party facts” about the safety of the conventional food supply. Meanwhile, neither group makes clear that it is founded and funded by Big Ag.
The report is worth reading, if only to remind ourselves just how insidious the PR machinations of big food and Big Ag can be. As report coauthor Stacy Malkan puts it, “To have an honest conversation about the future of our food system, it’s crucial for consumers and news producers to understand the alarming extent of industry influence on media coverage and to do what we can to make sure we’re hearing the real story, not spin.”
Related stories on TakePart:
• 30-Year Study Proves It: Organic Farming Is Best
• Big Food Just Bought Your Favorite Organic Mac and Cheese Company
• Big Food Is Spending $90 Million to Convince You Frozen Is as Good as Fresh
Original article from TakePart
