Monsanto is also participating in ‘GMO Answers’, a website launched in September 2013 by the Council for Biotechnology Information. Part of an industry-wide effort, which involves BASF, Bayer CropScience, Dow AgroSciences, DuPont, Monsanto and Syngenta, the site allows visitors to ask questions relating to all facets of GMOs, which are then answered by ‘experts’. The GMO biotech sector is also hoping to team up with NGOs and government-backed bodies to develop a more strategic approach to promoting GMOs.
In Britain, the Agricultural Biotechnology Centre, the Science Media Centre and senior politicians and officials have been collaborating to change the public’s negative perceptions of GMOs [1].
With people calling it the most evil company on the planet, ‘marching against Monsanto’ and Frankenfood becoming a common term in the mass media to describe GMOs, Monsanto has also reorganised its senior public relations (PR) staff and is also linking up with influential bloggers and the media outlet Conde Nast publishing house in an attempt to sell sustainability and GMOs to a sceptical public [2,3]. It has reportedly dangled substantial amounts of cash in front of respected food critics and celebrity chefs in an attempt to drag them into the rebranding process.
As usual, the message it is trying to get across is that Monsanto has the global population’s best interests at heart and GM food is the solution to solving the world’s food problems. With an increasing world population, the message is that GMOs will deliver increased yields. More food can be grown on less land. No problem, just sit back and give the GM biotech sector access to your agriculture.
To the uninformed, the pro-GM PR sounds highly appealing. Anti-GMO activists are dismissed as being Luddites or anti-big business and ideologically driven – because who in their right mind would oppose such frontier technology? Millions go hungry and those anti-GMO people are by implication taking the food from their stomachs. They are disgusting enemies of the poor, ignorant enemies of technology and science.
GMOs are potentially a weapon of mass destruction masquerading as a benign and altruistic product of mass consumption for the hungry millions. Control the seed and you control the food supply and the people.
GMOs are potentially a weapon of mass destruction masquerading as a benign and altruistic product of mass consumption for the hungry millions. Control the seed and you control the food supply and the people.
Read more: Monsanto’s Biotech Public Relations Makeover: Lubricating the Wheels of the GMO Trojan Horse | Global Research
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