FOE Report Claims Food Industry Covertly Manipulates Public Discourse

Friends of the Earth (FOE) has released a report claiming that
so-called food and agriculture industry front groups use covert tactics
to influence the public discourse around agriculture, organic production
and sustainability, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
Titled Spinning Food: How Food Industry Front Groups and Covert
Communications Are Shaping the Story of Food, the report alleges
that these front groups not only co-opt blogs, social media and other
seemingly independent platforms to spread PR messages on behalf of
industry, but ally with third-party outlets—such as National Geographic
and The New York Times—to create “an echo chamber of industry
talking points on anti-GMO labeling, attacks on organic agriculture and a
defense of agrochemicals.”

“Rather than responding to changing market demands by shifting the
way they do business, these companies are trying to preserve market
share and win key policy battles by using ‘tobacco-style’ PR tactics,”
opines the report. “While the food industry’s use of public relations
to shape popular opinion and policy making is not new, the level of
spending, the increase in the use of front groups to promote industry
messages and the deployment of covert social media tactics to spin the
story of food is unprecedented.”

Issue 571