The Organic Food Hoax by Henry I. Miller

The Organic Food Hoax by Henry I. Miller

https://www.hoover.org/research/organic-food-hoax?utm_source=hdr&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2018-01-18&utm_source=Hoover+Daily+Report&utm_campaign=bf2c936d53-HDR_1-10-18&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_21b1edff3c-bf2c936d53-72863337

Excerpt: Adam Smith, the eighteenth century economist and philosopher, offered insights into human nature and economics that seem particularly relevant today. “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices,” he wrote in The Wealth of Nations. We’re seeing evidence of that in the current effort to discredit and diminish genetically engineered foods and to attack their defenders in the scientific community. The chief perpetrators of this black marketing campaign are lobbyists for the organic agriculture and “natural products” industries and their enablers. Those industries have deep pockets. In 2016, Jay Byrne, president and CEO of the marketing agency v-Fluence Interactive, examined the IRS filings, annual reports, and other financial sources of companies, trade organizations, and NGOs involved in the effort to discredit modern agriculture. Based on that information, he estimated that in 2011 the groups tracked by his company spent $2.5 billion campaigning against genetic engineering in North America alone. Globally, advocacy groups targeting agriculture probably spent over $10 billion – attacking other sectors as well, including vaccines, pesticides, herbicides and other chemicals.