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Toward a Political Economy of Opinion Formation on Genetically Modified Foods

By Peter M. Rosset
Medical Anthropology Quarterly
Volume 15, Number 1
March 2001

"If the question is have we learned anything in recent months in the sociology, the media orientation, yes we have learned something."

--Robert B. Shapiro, Monsanto CEO
The New York Times, 12 November 1999

In developing a "considered sociology" of public beliefs about genetically modified (GM) foods (Murcott, this issue), there is a crying need for an approach rooted firmly in political economy. While it is certainly tempting to make the goal of such a sociology to go beyond "simple 'pro' and 'anti' alignments," it may be more useful to understand why the public debate and people's beliefs are indeed so polarized. Although, in this issue, Murcott presents us with an interesting discussion of professional/expert and lay/popular knowledge and opinions, I prefer a call to researchers to ask what political economic forces have shaped both and divided each into highly conflictive opposing groups?

I have my own hypotheses, of course, though space does not permit a thorough analysis here. But I think there are at least three key variables: (1) the complex web of self-interest in the highly interconnected and increasingly concentrated agrifood industry involved in the GM food commodity chain, (2) the astronomical amount invested both by individual companies in their own advertising and public relations campaigns and in industry-wide PR consortia, and (3) the power of the GM food issue to speed the agglutination of what I have called "a new international food movement" (Rosset 2000a).

The Web of Self-Interest

A brief review of a recent GM food scare in the United States serves to highlight the nature of self-interest in what might be called the "anatomy of a gene spill." On Monday, September 18, 2000, a coalition of biotech critics announced laboratory tests detecting the presence of GM corn, of a variety not approved for human consumption, in Taco Bell brand taco shells. The StarLink corn variety in question produces a Bt insecticide protein called Cry9C, which is a potential human food allergen because it is not broken down by digestive processes. Later the same day, Aventis CropScience, the biotech giant that produces StarLink seeds, respond-ed with a press release challenging the credibility of Genetic ID, the indepen-dent laboratory that had found the illicit presence of the variety. On September 22, Kraft, which sells the taco shells under the Taco Bell brand, issued a press release announcing their recall, while trying to shift blame to lax government regulations that permit corn not approved for human consumption to be grown for animal feed, despite inadequate safeguards to prevent their mixing in the food supply (Rosset 2000b).

In studying this case, I am struck by the dense network of transnational corporations (TNC) involved and the relationships among them. At the center of attention was a food processor (Kraft) owned by a tobacco company (Phillip Morris), paying a licensing fee to the world's largest fast food corporation (Tricon Global, which owns Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut), itself a spin-off from PepsiCo, which bought the actual taco shells from a Mexican direct subsidiary of Pepsi (Sabritas), which bought the flour from the company (Gruma) that produces over half of the tortillas consumed in the world and is partially owned by America's largest grain processor (Archer Daniels Midland). Gruma, in turn, bought the corn from farmers who bought the seed from a biotech conglomerate (Aventis CropScience) formed by the merger of two chemical companies (AgrEvo and Rhìne-Poulenc), one of which (AgrEvo) was itself the product of the previous merger of the Hoechst and Schering pharmaceutical and pesticide giants (Rosset 2000b).

This corporate agglomeration immediately began damage control designed to place the blame on anyone but itself: on consumer and environmental groups, on lax government regulators or regulations that are too strict, and so on (Rosset 2000b; see Miller 2000 for an example). In doing so, ample use was made of the growing pubic relations industry specializing in selling GM food to the public, that is, dedicated to shaping public beliefs. This raises questions about the new kinds of monopolistic and oligopolistic relationships and behavior that have arisen and their significance in this debate (see Krebs 1999 and Heffernan 1999), as well as the role of the PR industry.

The Public Relations Machinery

It may never be possible for us to determine the full extent of the resources that individual biotech companies and their consortia are devoting to molding public perceptions of GM food, but we can be sure they are enormous. According to one industry press release, "A multi-year, industry-led public information program begins today to share information about agricultural biotechnology in the United States and Canada. The program, sponsored by the Council for Biotechnology Information, will include a web site, toll-free consumer number, information materials and television and print advertising" (BIO 2000). The council includes Aventis CropScience, BASF, Dow Chemical, DuPont, Monsanto, Novartis, Zeneca, and the Biotechnology Industry Organization. According to the St. Louis Post Dispatch (2000), while only one of several such efforts, the council has U.S. $250 million in resources to use over five years.

Members of various probiotech alliances are financing "scientific" research, organizing forums, lobbying legislators, regulators, and farm organizations, and retaining major public relations firms (Barboza 1999). As Monsanto's CEO noted in the quote that opened this piece, the private sector is constructing its own sociology of public beliefs and adjusting its tactics as a result. Current strategy emphasizes using "credible" scientists, academics, and farmers to put forth proindustry positions, instead of company spokespeople who, it turns out, the public doesn't believe (Barboza 1999; see Altieri and Rosset 1999a, 1999b and McGloughlin 1999 to see how this might play out). It is indeed hard today to find probiotech scientists who do not receive some sort of industry funding (Science Friday 2000). The way in which the private sector is using its considerable financial resources to act on its "considered sociology" absolutely must be examined in detail in any more academic "considered sociology."

A New International Food Movement

The other side of the polarization equation surely lies in the way the issue of GM food has served to catalyze the discontent of diverse sectors of national and international civil societies around food issues. At the start of the millennium, food, like no other issue, has the ability to draw together actors who, rather than stand together in the past, have more often than not been at each other's throats. At the World Trade Organization (WTO) protests in Seattle, we saw American farmers marching with Third World farmers, who they once saw as competitors but now see as companions in struggle. Said one Wisconsin farmer, "The WTO fight in Seattle woke a lot of American farmers up to the fact that their fight isn't with farmers in France or India. The fight's with agribusiness and the whole corporate vision of forcing small farmers off the land" (Rosset 2000a:136). American farmers also marched with environmentalists, in the past set against each other by the productionist myth of food and jobs versus the environment. Their common anger over GM crops brought these strange bedfellows together, farmers because they can't sell their altered grain and feel that industry sold them a bill of goods, and environmentalists because of the risks these new organisms present. Consumer groups marched on GM food issues as well-- while other food and agriculture "fellow travelers" in protest of a food system that is increasingly perceived as meeting few people's needs included farm workers, landless peasants' groups, and welfare rights organizations protesting cutbacks in food stamps.

In order to understand, then, public beliefs about GM foods, we must integrate questions of economic concentration, strategies of and investments in public relations, and social movement formation and impact. Polarization of beliefs, I believe, is strongly driven by industry PR on the one hand, and by the issue itself becoming a historic catalyst of social movement formation on the other.

References Cited

Altieri, Miguel A., and Peter Rosset
1999a Ten Reasons Why Biotechnology Will Not Ensure Food Security, Protect the Environment and Reduce Poverty in the Developing World. AgBioForum 2(3-4):155-162. Electronic document, http://www.agbioforum.org/vol2no34/altieri.htm

1999b Strengthening the Case for Why Biotechnology Will Not Help the Developing World: Response to McGloughlin. AgBioForum 2(3-4): 226-236. Electronic document, http://www. agbioforum.org/vol2no34/altierireply.htm

Barboza, David
1999 Biotech Companies Take on Critics of Gene-Altered Food. New York Times, November 12. Biotechnology Industry Organization

2000 Public Information Program on Biotechnology Begins April 3. Washington, DC; Press release, April 3.

Heffernan, William
1999 Consolidation in the Food and Agriculture System: Report to the National Farmers Union. Columbia: University of Missouri.

Krebs, A. V.
1999 Corporate Agribusiness: Economic Concentration is Thy Name. The Agribusiness Examiner, No. 55, November 17, 1999. Electronic document, http://www.ea1.com/CARP/agbiz/agex-55.html

McGloughlin, Martina
1999 Ten Reasons Why Biotechnology Will Be Important to the Developing World. AgBioForum 2(3-4):163-174. Electronic document, http://www.agbioforum.org/vol2no34/mcgloughli.htm

Miller, Henry I.
2000 A Much Higher Standard for Gene-Spliced Foods. San Diego Union-Tribune, October 5.

Rosset, Peter
2000a A New Food Movement Comes of Age in Seattle, Globalize This! The Battle Against the World Trade Organization and Corporate Rule. Kevin Danaher and Roger Burbach, eds. Pp. 135- 140. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press.

2000b Anatomy of a Gene Spill: Do We Really Need Genetically Engineered Food? Institute for Food and Development Policy, Food First Backgrounder, vol. 6, no. 4. Electronic document, http://www.foodfirst.org

Science Friday
2000 Promise and Pitfalls of Using Genetically Modified Crops in Developing Countries. Washington, DC: National Public Radio, April 14. Electronic document, http://www.foodfirst.org/media/interviews/2000/scifri4-00.html

St. Louis Post Dispatch
2000 Biotech Rivals Team Up in Effort to Sell Altered Food. St. Louis Post Dispatch, April 4.

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