Biotech corporates, allied with state agencies, attempt to ‘educate’ British consumers

In the US corporate tradition: Rebecca Mark was said to have ‘educated’ Indian decision-makers about Enron, with $60 million.

Britain’s special friend recently updated an ‘educational’ Food Biotechnology document.

It was produced ‘under a partnering agreement’ between the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) and the International Food Information Council (IFIC) Foundation.

Its mission: “to provide vital information to communicators on food biotechnology”.

Note that, rather than referring to GMOs or genetic engineering the preferred terminology is now “biotechnology”. This report goes further, elaborating on the use of language to manipulate the undecided and giving a useful chart (below).

Words to use, words to lose

This vital information to communicators on food biotechnology, to all hoping to advance the growing of GM crops, would include IFIC’s funders, in particular: Bayer CropScience, Cargill, The Coca-Cola Company, Dow AgroSciences, DuPont, Monsanto, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Tate & Lyle and Unilever.

This chart, which is more clearly reproduced on page 12 of the document, is followed by a note: “To communicate with impact . . . your words must be uniquely yours. The intent of these lists is to raise your awareness of words that have been found to evoke negative or positive reactions from consumers. Although Words to Lose may sometimes be necessary, an understanding of their potential impact on certain groups will aid in more productive conversations with those groups”.

The ‘Hidden Persuaders’ . . .

–

Next: A ‘full-frontal’ attack on NGOs which oppose the growing of GM crops as presently developed