Framing a too bright picture, or how Monsanto is controlling our food

How we are ever going to provide enough food for our growing population? This question touches politics, engineering and the environment. It is a case that affects us all, and we, both citizens and policy makers, need to be informed objectively and unbiased.

One of the solutions, Genetically Modified Foods, divides us deeply. Between fears about environmental damage on the one hand, and an optimistic economic outlook on the other hand.

My position is somewhat in between, and without much thinking I have positioned myself in a gray zone, in between a slight worry about environmental impact and a simultaneous longing for progress. My slightly undecided (uninformed) point of view has made me, and a lot of Americans, the perfect victim for framing.

Framing

The concept of Framing has been made famous by George Lakoff through his book Don't Think of an Elephant. It explains how far-right strategists have taken over the political agenda for the past decades.

Framing is about the meaning that our brain associates with words. This has been used to influence mass media to let people see the issue in a desired way. For example, "war against terror" sets the stage of a country at stake and sacrifices to be made. "Pro-life" turns the issue from abortion to life itself, and makes the pro-abortion activists sound like being against life.

In an interview in 2006, Lakoff explained how his pupil Barack Obama used framing to win over (traditionally labeled) conservatives for more progressive themes:

What Obama does is this: he says there are traditional American values, unity being among them, and he appeals to those values. We share a lot of those values and you hear in his speeches that there are plenty of them. Among those values have to do, as he points out, with religion--there are a lot of religious people in the country. They are not mostly conservatives, and that's the thing he understands. He knows that most people who are religious Christians are, in fact, progressive Christians, and he wants to appeal to them. He wants to be able to talk to them as well as to people who don't happen to be Christians and don't happen to have other religions, but are also moral beings. And when he talks about religion what he immediately gets to is morality. The morality he gets to is progressive morality. Why? Because he talks about the empathy deficit. Empathy is at the heart of progressive morality--that's what progressive morality is about. Immediately, he is able to talk to a huge audience about central progressive themes without using a word like progressive, without mentioning the ideology, but mentioning what is behind the ideology: caring and empathy. That is also what is behind the values that were there at the founding of this country.

Framing is not always bad, but it always has a purpose.

Monsanto

Leader in Genetically Modified Foods is Monsanto. Their homepage says: "Monsanto is an agricultural company. We apply innovation and technology to help farmers around the world produce more while conserving more. We help farmers grow yield sustainably so they can be successful, produce healthier foods, better animal feeds and more fiber, while also reducing agriculture's impact on our environment."

Let's take a look at these words. From a branding point of view, they have done a very professional job. The website starts off by talking the major benefits:

1. We help farmers produce more
2. We help produce healthier foods
3. We improve farmer's lives
4. We help to conserve nature

How could anyone be against that? If you browse around the website you will find these messages repeated consistently. They paint a picture of a responsible, open company that has Corporate Responsibility high on the agenda.

Not a surprise, because Monsanto hired the best. Brain behind the brand strategy is Donna Heckler, co-author of The Truth About Creating Brands People Love (2008). I haven't read it yet, but looking at the preview it seems a solid primer about brand strategy, even ethical. She is a professional.

Although executed professionally, this won't hold up in todays information society. One afternoon Googling gave me these pieces of information about the company:

• Monsanto is one of the biggest chemical companies in the world (not just 'agricultural'). brittanica.com. Monsanto reported record net sales of $4 billion for the second quarter of fiscal year 2009, which were 8 percent higher than sales in the same period in fiscal year 2008.
• Monsanto has produced products as DDT and Agent Orange, used in the Vietnam war containing high doses of dioxin, that Monsanto still denies having any toxic effects. Agent Orange is affecting the lives of US veterans and Vietnam people even in the 3rd generation. bbc.co.uk
• Monsanto's popular pesticide Roundup is now 4 times stronger than in 1996 and contains 70% Agent Orange. It is used by people all over the world that are not aware of the imminent dangers.
• Monsanto is the world's biggest seed maker. Yes, maker, as they 'create' seeds by modifying existing seeds to make them resistant, mostly to the pesticides Monsanto sells. Farmers that buy Monsanto seeds are not allowed to use their plants for seeds; instead they need to buy new seeds.
• Monsanto increases its market shared by buying competitors, big (nytimes.com) and small. GMOs can be part of a drive to establish ever-stronger agricultural monopolies (bbc.co.uk). In India Monsanto now has a near monopoly on seeds, and asks prices that are 4 times higher than previously. Unsurprisingly, Monsanto's sales have jumped. bbc.co.uk
• Monsanto's business goals are supported by successive US governments through the "revolving doors" techique. edmonds-institute.org For example, Michael Taylor worked for Monsanto as an attorney before being appointed as deputy commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1991. Taylor made crucial decisions that led to the approval of GE foods and crops. Then he returned to Monsanto, becoming the company’s vice president for public policy. In 2009 he has become minister of agriculture under Obama. huffingtonpost.com

Dangers

Let's dive in a little further. We can learn a bit more about the dangers of Genetically Modified Foods:

• GM companies do not have to do extensive field testing. Successive US governments did not want any unneccessary regulation (Bush senior: "We're in the dereg biz"). This process was facilitated by Michael Taylor from the FDA (just after he worked at Monsanto) who created the policies around GM products in 1991.
• Although Monsanto claims that no health issues have been raised in peer reviewed reports, this is simply not true.
  • On Nov. 11 2008, Austria's Ministries for Agriculture and Health released the results of a long-term study (PDF) of genetically modified organisms. A widely used strain of GM corn, they found, appears to decrease both birthrates and the size of offspring in mice - and the problems seem to grow with each generation.
  • The risks of gene jumping are inherent to the GM technology. GM genes may have jumped from GM pollen to bacteria and yeasts in the gut of baby bees. Barnett, A. (2000). GM genes ‘jump species barrier’ The Observer May 28, 2000.

The background is this:

GM genetic material is not like ordinary genetic material. Natural genetic material in non-GM food is broken down by special enzymes to provide energy and building-blocks for growth and repair. And should the foreign genetic material get into a cell’s own genetic material - its genome – other enzymes can still put it out of action. All these are part of the biological barrier that keeps species distinct, so gene exchange across species is held in check.

But along come the genome invaders, genetic engineers and the artificial constructs they make, which are designed to cross all species barriers and to literally invade genomes. Genetic material of dangerous bacteria, viruses and other genetic parasites from widely different origins are combined into new constructs that have never existed in billions of years of evolution. And genes are transferred between species that would never interbreed. These constructs include antibiotic resistance genes that make bacterial infections untreatable. They include aggressive gene-switches or promoters from viruses that make genes over-express continuously – something which never happens in healthy organisms – and are active across a wide range of species. One such promoter, from the cauliflower mosaic virus, or CaMV, is in practically all GM crops already commercialized or undergoing field trials. Colleagues and I have reviewed the scientific evidence surrounding the CaMV promoter and called for all these crops to be withdrawn on grounds that they are unsafe..

GM constructs are designed to jump into genomes. Unfortunately, they can also jump out again, to invade other genomes. GM lines are well-known to be unstable, partly because the integrated GM construct can be lost, and the viral promoter makes it worse.

Experiments have shown that GM genes can transfer from plants to soil fungi and bacteria. Two German geneticists monitored fields where GM sugar beet was planted. They found that the GM construct has persisted in the soil for at least two years after the plants were removed, and some bacteria in the soil may have taken up different parts of the construct.

[...] GM crops are turning out to be useless as well as unsafe. The bacterial bt-toxins, engineered into many crops are poisonous for beneficial and endangered species such as lacewings and the Monarch butterfly. They also encourage new resistant pests to evolve. Stink Bugs in North Carolina and Georgia are eating up the bt-cotton crops. Monsanto recommends spraying with toxic pesticides including methyl parathion, among the deadliest chemicals used in American agriculture. Studies in the University of Nebraska indicate that GM Roundup Ready soya yielded 6-11% less than non-GM soya, and needed 2-5 times more herbicide.

Source: GM Crops – How Corporations Rule and Ruin the World

Claims

If GM does not provide healthier food, what about the other claims?

According to US research, GM crops 'may give lower yields' (bbc.co.uk). If the crop is not substantially larger, with Monsanto's high seed prices, farmer's lives will not be improved much. Because farmers are forced to use more and more pesticides, their health is in danger too.

Documentary

Available on YouTube is the French documentary “The world according to Monsanto”. Directed by independent filmmaker Marie-Monique Robin, it paints a grim picture of a company with a long track record of environmental crimes and health scandals.

Link to all fragments

In defense, Monsanto has responded with their own blog: 'Monsanto according to Monsanto'. "The title Monsanto According to Monsanto is a spoof of The World According to Monsanto, a horribly biased documentary which portrays Monsanto in a very negative light. Aside from the shoddy journalism, we at Monsanto found it incredibly arrogant that the filmmaker would present her own twisted view of Monsanto as the company’s view of the world."

Be an enlighted and informed citizen, do your research, and judge yourself.

Framing gone bad

A brand strategy that is consistenly and purposefully different from reality, designed not just to paint a brighter picture but to force the debate in the opposite direction, is unethical and belongs more to shoddy politics than to branding. It is a shame that Donna Heckler has lent her talents to this company.

It is our jobs as consumers (and farmers!) to learn to be aware of these tactics and to see through them.