Weeds and fungi, like insects, are often 'pests' in agriculture. This is evidenced by the fact that in the UK the Pesticides Safety Directorate, an agency of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, conducts safety evaluations and issues licences for the use of herbicides, fungicides and insecticides. Therefore Monsanto's advertisement is selective in its presentation of information about pesticide use as it only refers to insect resistant crops and insecticide use. In the context of this advertisement this cannot be seen a quibble over semantics. Readers of the advertisement are being led to believe that Monsanto's interest in biotechnology is restricted to developments which will result in less pesticide being used in growing foods.
Farmers using the crop can spray the pesticide onto the field without killing the crop.
The omission of this information is all the more striking as the Monsanto advertisement states that the company produce the herbicide Roundup but then neglect to provide the reader with important information about their role and that of biotechnology in increasing the use of this pesticide and that the first Monsanto product the consumer is eating has led to an increased use of a pesticide in growing food. Therefore, GeneWatch believes the advertisement is not honest as it exploits a lack of knowledge about pesticides and not truthful as it omits important information about Monsanto's products and misleads the public as a result. The first paragraph of the advertisement refers to an insect resistant tomato as if it is a real product which is made by Monsanto. The third paragraph of the advertisement states that Monsanto's food crops ' have also been approved by government regulatory agencies in over 20 countries, including Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands, the USA and Great Britain' . The implication from the first paragraph is that these food crops include the tomato.