To prevent a US consumer backlash, PR Week advised ag PR pros to lay the foundation for public acceptance of biotech foods. PR firms with food industry clients have quietly begun laying the groundwork. The GMA is the driving force behind the Alliance for Better Foods said GMA spokesperson Brian Sansoni. The anxiety level of the industry and its backers appears to be increasing substantially. At the abovementioned Senate Ag Committee hearing, many called on EPA, FDA, and USDA, the three federal agencies with regulatory jurisdiction over biotech, to step up their efforts to defend the technology.
Industry wants a stronger seal of approval. . . .
This sentiment was repeated by Marc Curtis, president of the American Soybean Association, who complained that the Clinton Administration has not clearly signaled how it intends to handle biotech issues in the coming round of world trade talks that begin in Seattle at the end of November. Some lamented that all these dreams could vanish if biotechnology's critics prevail. Roger Beachy, president of the newly established Donald Danforth Plant Center, a non-profit biotech research organization set up in St. Louis with funding from Monsanto, the Danforth Foundation and the state of Missouri, further chided biotech critics by suggesting that their alternative to biotech food, organic food, was not guaranteed to be safe. The American Corn Growers Association, a progressive commodity group that represents thousands of corn growers in 28 states, is encouraging its members to plant non-GMO varieties. At the Senate Ag Committee hearings, NCGA board member Tim Hume called on biotech seed companies to make sure they offered their best hybrid varieties in conventional versions.