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Revealed: the US government-funded ‘private social network’ attacking pesticide critics | Pesticides
Network includes derogatory profiles of figures such as UN experts and food writer Michael Pollan, and is part of an effort to downplay pesticide dangers, records suggest
Photograph: Cia Pak/UN PhotoMembers can access a wide range of personal information about hundreds of individuals from around the world deemed a threat to industry interests, including the US food writers Michael Pollan and Mark Bittman, the Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva and the Nigerian activist Nnimmo Bassey. The revelations demonstrate how industry advocates have established a “private social network” to counter resistance to pesticides and genetically modified (GM) crops in Africa, Europe and other parts of the world, while also denigrating organic and other alternative farming methods. “I don’t think most people realize the degree of corporate espionage and USDA’s complicity with it,” said Austin Frerick, who served as co-chair of the Biden campaign’s agriculture antitrust policy committee and recently authored a book about concentration of power in the food system.
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