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Assessment on 2,4-D Resistant Crops Activism
I. Overview
Environmental health and anti-biotechnology activists will likely oppose the
widespread use of 2,4-D resistant crops, and much of the opposition from key groups
will be coordinated. These groups are unlikely to be able to bring about the
withdrawal of registration or to successfully bring widespread product deselection by
farmers. Still, the issues these groups raise have the potential to turn 2,4-D
resistant crops into a public battle in which the Dow Agrosciences seeds serve as a
proxy for a number of disparate battles that activists have been waging for more
than a decade.
Anti-corporate critics of Dow Chemical and its subsidiaries are likely to be the most
potent source of opposition to 2,4-D resistant seeds. Activist groups have targeted
Dow Chemical on three fronts: its alleged liabilities as the owner of Union Carbide
Corporation for the Bhopal disaster; its liabilities as a manufacturer of Agent Orange
during the Vietnam War; and its continued production of chemicals that are
persistent, bioaccumulative or toxic (chlorine-based products in particular). The
campaign against the company, known broadly as the Dow Accountability Campaign,
has links with leading anti-chemicals organizations and the Pesticide Action Network
North America (PANNA), which is likely to be among the leading critics of 2,4-D
resistant crops. The Dow Accountability Campaign has lost much of its structure,
coordination and funding over the last several years as it has focused almost entirely
on Bhopal-related issues, but it can quickly be reinvigorated if activists and funders
see a new opportunity to challenge the company. Foundations are already investing
in Agent Orange activism in 2011, which could awaken one of the major nodes of the
mostly dormant campaign.
In addition to the three fronts of the Dow Accountability Campaign, opposition to
2,4-D resistant crops will come from opponents of agricultural biotechnology, most
effectively from those who have battled Monsanto for the past 15 years on issues
relating to herbicide resistance. The 2,4-D issue will provide these activists an
opportunity to point out that despite Monsanto’s assurances to the contrary, activists
predicted the eventual emergence of herbicide resistance with the introduction of
Roundup Ready crops and they will use the introduction of the new Dow
Agrosciences products as a chance to reiterate their message, remind the public they
were right about herbicide resistance, and call for dramatic changes to the
agricultural system.
In addition to serving as a proxy for larger arguments about herbicide resistance,
Agent Orange, Bhopal and PBTs, some major organizations will oppose the use of
2,4-D resistant crops on the basis that 2,4-D is not safe for widespread application.
These groups will appeal to the federal government not to allow the sale of 2,4-D
resistant seeds claiming that the increased application of 2,4-D will do severe
damage to the environment and threaten human health. Though they are the most
clearly focused on the product at issue, these activists are the least likely to be
successful, as their position requires winning a scientific argument about a substance
that has been subject of considerable study.
With this in mind, product deselection appears the most potent activist threat to the
successful marketing of 2,4-D resistant seeds in the U.S. Groups are unlikely to win
at the regulatory level, but they may be able to combine selected scientific
allegations with arguments about herbicide resistance and allegations about Dow
Chemical to convince some farmers that planting DowAgrosciences’ 2,4-D resistant
seeds represents a risky endeavor, or that food manufacturers or retailers using 2,4D resistant crops are also subject to business risk.
II. Key activist groups and issues
The key groups to watch in tracking the opposition to 2,4-D resistant crops fall into
two broad categories: those opposed to biotechnology and those working against
Dow’s reputation and brand.
The groups trying to stop or slow the introduction of new agricultural biotechnology
are led by the Organic Consumers Association and Beyond Pesticides and often
coordinate through the Genetic Engineering Action Network (GEAN). These
organizations will be the most strident in opposing the proliferation of 2,4-D resistant
crops, but their capabilities are limited due to lack of funding and a historical apathy
in the United States on agricultural biotechnology and GMO-related issues (these
issues tend to gain more public support in Europe).
The groups that are active against Dow Chemical work on many different issues
relevant to the company. They include the Environmental Health Fund (EHF), which
manages the Bhopal-related issues; PANNA, which used to lead the larger global
Dow Accountability Campaign (and which is also a leading anti-biotechnology group)
but still provides support for Students for Bhopal; and the Vietnam Agent Orange
Relief and Responsibility Campaign. These groups are small but effective at bringing
negative publicity to Dow and its subsidiaries. Their work will not in itself have a
decisive impact on 2,4-D resistant crops, but they could provide significant support
for the anti-biotechnology organizations that will try to slow or stop the introduction
of 2,4-D resistant crops.
Depending on how much attention the anti-biotechnology groups are able to bring to
the introduction of 2,4-D resistant crops, the anti-Dow organizations may find
common cause and try to find ways to blend 2,4-D into their campaigns. This is a
worst-case scenario result in that the complaints about Vietnam or India, which have
largely fallen on deaf ears in the U.S., could find new life when tied to a more
tangible and local agricultural biotechnology issue. Similarly, the anti-biotechnology
activists could see the taint from these long term controversies strengthen their
campaigns.
A. Opposition to Biotechnology
Activist groups in the United States have opposed agricultural biotechnology since
the late 1980s when the industry was in its formative stages. The groups that
opposed theoretical seed manipulations, such as herbicide resistance, Bacillus
thuringiensis amplification and other traits, relied primarily on unsubstantiated
allegations and an acknowledged fear of the unknown. Over the years, some of the
specific fears bore out, while most did not, and fear of the unknown remains a
significant justification for opposition to agricultural biotechnology.
For some of the early opponents of agricultural biotechnology, these concerns
reflected their primary reasons for opposing new seeds or veterinary drugs. In most
cases, however, the opponents of agricultural biotechnology were longstanding
opponents of the agricultural industry, agricultural chemicals industry and the
chemicals industry broadly. They viewed the introduction of agricultural
biotechnology as another step in the corporate control of agriculture, so-called “Big
Ag,” and the empowerment of corporations they historically did not trust. Their
opposition to agricultural biotechnology, while sincere, came as an extension of their
concern about other issues.
As the global leaders in biotechnologies reconfigured themselves as life sciences
companies in the 1990s and began to purchase or build seeds businesses, opposition
to agricultural biotechnology heightened. Controversies over the introduction of
GMOs erupted in Europe at this time as well.
The late 1990s represent the zenith of opposition to agricultural biotechnology.
Every major environmental and consumers organization in the U.S. built a
biotechnology-focused practice. Concern dissipated quickly, however, and by the
early 2000s opposition to biotechnology was a boutique area of activism led by
organics and anti-pesticide groups. Environmental organizations abandoned their
biotechnology campaigns, and consumers groups were split on the issues relating to
the safety of GMOs.
This boutique group of activist groups is led by Beyond Pesticides, Organic
Consumers Association, ETC Group, Pesticide Action Network North America, Union
of Concerned Scientists and Friends of the Earth. In addition to these organizations,
dozens of smaller regional and special interest groups are also active on questions
relating to the planting of GMO crops.
The organizations at the core of the opposition to biotechnology are primarily
idealistic groups. These organizations tend not to balance the impact on human
health and well being from banning GMOs with the benefits they think would come
from not planting them. Instead they see planting of GMOs as an inherently
negative practice that must stop.
A few, notably Organic Consumers Association and Friends of the Earth, view the
issue as an ideological one in which corporations are increasing their power over
people via their control over the food supply. These groups do not necessarily argue
on the merits of health or ecological merits of the products at question – they oppose
the product because large corporations made them and they will use whatever
argument they think will be effective.
Contemporary biotechnology activism is missing a key segment: realists. Realists
generally are activists who accept trade offs and acknowledge that costs and benefits
must be balanced. They tend to pay close attention to scientific argument and fight
where the science most strongly supports their view and they tend to compromise
where the science is less helpful. Realistic consumer and environmental
organizations were the most significant segment of groups that left the antibiotechnology movement in the early part of the 2000s. This is crucial because it
has meant that the organizations fighting the regulatory battles in EPA and at USDA
do not have the credibility of groups such as Consumers Union or Natural Resources
Defense Council. Instead, the comments are dominated by groups such as Organic
Consumers Association and Beyond Pesticides whose doctrinaire and absolutist
rhetoric has far less effect at the regulatory level than moderate organizations.
B. Opposition to Dow
The roots of the focused opposition to Dow Chemical and its subsidiaries lies in the
Vietnam War. The Agent Orange issue is the clearest outgrowth, but the emotion is
actually rooted in the stories and pictures of the effects of napalm in Vietnam. (Dow
was a considered a “corporate villain” by war protesters long before health
allegations about Agent Orange surfaced.) As a chlorine-based chemicals company,
it also became the favored target of the anti-chlorine and the endocrine disruption
campaigns of the 1980s and 1990s. The 1999 purchase of Union Carbide
Corporation added questions surrounding the liability over the 1984 Bhopal gas leak.
Anti-chemical industry activist Gary Cohen, the founder of Environmental Health
Fund, cobbled these various issue concerns into one campaign in 2002, know as the
Dow Accountability Campaign. The campaign began with the publication of a book,
Trespass Against Us, by Jack Doyle, and it featured chapters on a long list of
complaints, including Vietnam, Bhopal and 2,4-D.
The campaign was based in part on a previous campaign led by environmental health
activists against Shell for its alleged human rights abuses abroad (Nigeria) and its
alleged pollution and negative health impact in the Gulf Coast, especially in Norco,
Louisiana. Activists launched a multi-pronged campaign against Shell which they
claim resulted in Shell offering to buy out residents’ homes in Norco.
While the Shell campaign did succeed in activists’ eyes, the Dow Accountability
Campaign did not succeed in its objective -- placing enough pressure on the
company to accept additional penalties for Bhopal and Agent Orange -- but it did
challenge the company’s brand (including various public relations stunts against the
company organized by the prank group, the Yes Men) and build a network of
grassroots organizations that remain concerned about any product associated with
the company.
These grassroots groups and the national movements on the various Dow-related
sub-issues remain a vulnerability for any Dow product, but especially those that
carry controversy into the marketplace.
1. Vietnam
Activists have been campaigning against Dow Chemical’s role in the production of
Agent Orange during the Vietnam War for years, however 2011 may mark an uptick
in this work. Activists claim that 2011 marks fifty years since the beginning of what
would become Operation Ranch Hand and forty years since Operation Ranch Hand
stopped. In 2011, the campaign to win reparations to Vietnamese victims will step
up dramatically. The Ford Foundation has given numerous organizations in the U.S.
and Vietnam more than $500,000 to bring attention to Vietnamese claims that Agent
Orange is having a negative impact on human health on the grandchildren of those
exposed to the compound.
They will focus particularly on the intergenerational impacts of the herbicide. The
fact that 2,4-D was a component of Agent Orange -- though not one of the
components at issue in litigation or U.S.-Vietnam diplomacy – means that while
Agent Orange activists will not likely have much to say on the 2,4-D issue, the antibiotechnology activists working against 2,4-D resistant crops will likely find the
campaign against Agent Orange to be quite helpful.
The Agent Orange victims are led by Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility
Campaign, which is an Agent Orange victims group based in the U.S. that was
founded in 2005. The group co-sponsored a protest at the Dow Live Earth Run for
Water in April 2010 along with the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal,
Center for Health, Environment and Justice, Wetlands Activism Collective/Global
Justice for Animals and the Environment and the Yes Men. The group members
dressed as Grim Reapers and held “die-ins” at the event in order to draw media
attention to their claim Dow is a bad company that is involved in Agent Orange,
dioxin pollution in Michigan, the Bhopal gas leak and poisoning drinking water in
Seadrift, Texas at the former Union Carbide plant.
In 2009, the Ford Foundation awarded more than a dozen grants totaling $3 million
dollars to various media and research groups to work on the Agent Orange issue.
Among the important grants Ford awarded are: $50,000 to the Washington, D.C.based Communications Consortium Media Center to prepare a strategy to lead a
coordinated U.S. media campaign against Agent Orange and dioxin. It also made a
$250,000 grant to the Vermont-based War Legacies Project, which is the fiscal
sponsor of the Truth about Dow website and works to educate the public on the
health effects of Agent Orange and dioxin and current government and non profit
efforts directed at helping victims.
2. Bhopal
The Bhopal campaign continues at a low boil. While the Agent Orange issue may
increase in intensity (at least in the amount of attention it receives by the media),
the Bhopal issue has been steadily decreasing in importance to both activists and the
media. The Bhopal campaign in the U.S. does not have the experienced activists it
once had. Diana Ruiz of PANNA used to coordinate the Dow Accountability Campaign
(which was housed out of PANNA) but she has moved on and PANNA does not have a
direct replacement for her. Ryan Boydani, the founder and head of Students for
Bhopal, left the organization several years ago and now works at National Wildlife
Federation.
The Bhopal campaign continues to operate in an opportunistic fashion – for instance,
demonstrating in India while President Obama visited the country in November 2010.
The campaign has two major nodes, one in India and one in the U.S. The Indian
node of activity is working through the Indian political and court systems to win a
new judgment against Union Carbide Company over the Bhopal incident. The U.S.
node is dedicated to placing pressure on the Dow brand across the country. The
primary activity in the U.S. is maintaining student groups at universities, especially
engineering and science schools, in an attempt to provide ready activists for Bhopalrelated direct action and also to generate question among students in pursuing a
Dow-related career.
C. Environmental Health Arguments against 2,4-D
While the anti-Dow and biotechnology groups are probably the most important to
watch, environmental health arguments against 2,4-D should also be noted. Natural
Resources Defense Council focused on environmental health claims in its 2008
petition to EPA – particularly that it is an endocrine disruptor. NRDC has mentioned
2,4-D in several reports, including the 1997 “Our Children at Risk,” the 1998
“Trouble on the Farm,” and the 1999 “Bottled Water Pure Drink or Pure Hype,” but
these reports predate the petition. NRDC would be an important group to monitor,
however, as it a realist group that could have influence at the regulatory level
against 2,4-D resistant seeds. While the 2008 petition to ban 2,4-D seems to have
fizzled out as a priority for the group, the release of 2,4-D resistant seeds could
cause the group to reinvigorate its campaign. NRDC is not an anti-biotech group,
however, so its main claims would be of an environmental health nature.
Besides NRDC, the following are several groups that have made recent
environmental health arguments against 2,4-D.
1. PANNA
Pesticide Action Network of North America (PANNA) is both an anti-biotech and
environmental health group. Its objective is to reduce demand (either by phase outs
or public campaigning efforts) of synthetic pesticides. It is particularly concerned
with those pesticides deemed to be persistent, bioaccummulative or toxic. It views
pesticides as the “lynchpin” of the current commercial agricultural system and views
a change or reduction in pesticide use as a way to change the agricultural industry
from large scale, corporate farms to small scale, organic farms. It is anti-corporate
and believes “Big Ag” prioritizes profits over the public’s health.
PANNA operates a pesticides database whose information serves a key indicator of
activists’ view of chemicals of concern. PANNA’s database focuses on 2,4-D’s
potential to cause endocrine disruption and notes that the chemical is on several
notable activist scientist’s list of chemicals of concern relating to endocrine
disruption, including lists made by Our Stolen Future co-author, Theo Colborn, as
well as the EU endocrine disruption priority list. PANNA says 2,4-D is included in
Lawrence Keith’s 1997 book, Environmental Endocrine Disruptors: A Handbook of
Property Data, as well as Charles Benbrook’s 1996 report, Growing Doubt: A Primer
on Pesticides Identified as Endocrine Disruptors and/or Reproductive Toxicants. The
PANNA listing also notes 2,4-D is classified as a “probable” endocrine disruptor on
1997 Illinois EPA list in the “Report on Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals” and is listed
in a 2000 report by European BKH Consulting Engineers and TNO Nutrition Research,
“Towards the Establishment of a Priority List of Substances for Further Evaluation of
their Role in Endocrine Disruption.”
Notably, PANNA does not include 2,4-D in its “Dirty Dozen” pesticide list, nor is it
noted as a “bad actor.” PANNA defines “bad actor” by possessing at least one of the
following traits: highly acutely toxic, cholinesterase inhibitor, known/probable
carcinogen, known groundwater pollutant or known reproductive or developmental
toxicant. PANNA notes that there are no “authoritative” lists of endocrine disrupting
chemicals so those chemicals suspected to disrupt the endocrine system are not
classified as “bad actors.” It is also important that 2,4-D is not included in
California’s Proposition 65 list, which is a list many activists rely on for their
campaign work.
However, 2,4-D receives a “potential” classification for PAN’s Ground Water
Contaminant Rating and it is listed as a hazardous air pollutant at U.S. EPA and in
California. It also says 2,4-D is a possible IARC carcinogen and listed as moderately
hazardous on the WHO Acute Hazard list and slight to moderately toxic according to
U.S. National Toxicology Program Acute Toxicity Studies.
It should be noted that while PANNA’s database treats 2,4-D fairly well, PANNA notes
that 2,4-D is a top search in its database, potentially indicating growing interest
among activists in the chemical.
In 2010, PANNA launched a database of chemicals in food called “What’s On My
Food.” It lists 2,4-D as being found in potatoes, untreated water, treated water,
groundwater and bottled water. The database appears modeled after the
Environmental Working Group’s Chemicals in Cosmetics database, which receives
significant media attention and is often held as a key reference document for people
concerned about exposure to certain chemicals.
PANNA is a relatively well-connected group. PANNA’s board includes the
environmental program officers of the Compton Foundation and the C.S. Mott
Foundation. Chemicals consultant, Michael Picker, is also on the board. He has close
ties with California chemicals regulators.
PANNA also worked with NRDC to ban all uses of chlorpyrifos. The groups submitted
a petition to EPA in 2007 to revoke all tolerances and cancel all registrations for
chlorpyrifos. In July 2010, the groups filed suit with EPA alleging harm by the
agency for not following through with the petition request.
2. Beyond Pesticides
Beyond Pesticides has a “Chemical Watch Factsheet” for 2,4-D (2004) in which it
says the pesticide is linked to cancer, endocrine disruption, reproductive toxicity,
neurotoxicity, kidney and liver damage, toxicity to dogs, fish, birds, earthworms and
beneficial insects such as bees.
Beyond Pesticides notes that it has a low persistence in soil levels but that it has a
high potential to leach from soils, potentially contaminating groundwater. Beyond
Pesticides says that about 50% of 2,4-D composes Agent Orange but says “it is
thought that most of the health problems related to Agent Orange were actually due
to dioxin contamination of the other major component, 2,4,5-T.” It says that
although 2,4,5-T has been banned, dioxin has been found in 2,4-D. and this is
potentially harmful to health.
Beyond Pesticides was instrumental in getting 2,4-D banned in Quebec.
3. Breast Cancer Fund
The San Francisco-based Breast Cancer Fund is an environmental health group
dedicated to promoting science which links environmental exposure to chemicals and
breast cancer. The group issues an annual report, “State of the Evidence,” which
provides an overview of recent studies that find links between environmental
exposures and breast cancer. The 2006, 2008 and 2010 reports include studies, and
claims made by Pesticide Action Network, that 2,4-D is an endocrine disruptor and
may be linked to breast cancer. The reports, however, mostly rely on one 2005
study of 128 Latina agricultural workers diagnosed with cancer and exposed to
chlordane, malathion and 2,4-D (Mills, PK, Yang R. Breast cancer risk in Hispanic
agricultural workers in California. International Journal of Occupational and
Environmental Health.) While the Breast Cancer Fund did not mention 2,4-D in its
press release for the 2010 report, Beyond Pesticides wrote an article on the report in
which it called out the various pesticides mentioned in the report, including 2,4-D.
4. Collaborative on Health and the Environment
The Collaborative on Health and the Environment is an initiative founded in 2002 by
Bolinas, California-based Commonweal to bring scientific research on chemicals and
health effects to the mainstream. CHE operates a database on toxicants and
diseases to educate the public, and interested medical professionals, on
environmental health issues. It lists 2,4-D has having a “strong” link to chloracne, a
“good” link to abnormal sperm, lymphoma, peripheral neuropathy, porphyria, and
soft tissue sarcoma. It lists 2,4-D as having a “limited” link to testicular cancer,
colorectal cancer, brain cancer, oral clefts, acute hepatocellular injury, neural tube
defect, immune suppression and reduced fertility in males.
CHE maintains many disease-specific working groups such as fertility, mental health,
learning disabilities and asthma, which are composed of public health and medical
professionals, activists and concerned members of the public. The working groups
have regular conference calls and coordinate their actions such as releasing reports
and developing media campaigns that get the message out that exposure to certain
chemicals can lead to certain health conditions. While these working groups have
not focused on 2,4-D in the past, groups such as PANNA or potentially NRDC could
request CHE’s help in providing “credible” allies to any environmental health-focused
arguments against Dow Agrosciences’ 2,4-D resistant seeds.
D. Other Side Issues
Climate Change Activism and Pesticides
Pesticides and GMO activism may begin to be wrapped up in the climate activism
debate. Organic Consumers Association President Ronnie Cummins said in a
December 2010 article that “Big Agribusiness” is similar to “Big Coal” and “Big Oil”
because they all rely on fossil fuels and contribute to global climate change. He says
nitrate-based fertilizes in particular, which he says is often used in conjunction with
genetically modified crops, helps contribute to releases of the greenhouse gas nitrous
oxide and also pollutes water. He also says fertilizers are energy intensive to
produce and in the process burns fossil fuels.
Cummins suggests climate activists promote the idea of organic farms developed to
sequester carbon and utilize composting for food scraps. He says, “We need to
spread the word that corporate agribusiness, factory farms, and the chemical
fertilizer industry are climate criminals. We either ‘sunset’ them or they're going to
sunset us.”
Cummins says in early 2011, his group and labor and climate groups will launch a
20-city campaign to educate the public on methane and nitrous oxide issues and
their linkages to climate change and promote alternative farming methods (he says
“take down the methane and nitrous oxide climate criminals”)
GMO Industry “Opportunism” Argument
The environmental news organization and advocacy group, Grist.org, has written
several articles mentioning Dow AgroSciences’ 2,4-D resistant crops. In these
articles, Grist claims that the company is capitalizing on what the group says is
Monsanto’s resistance issues associated with Roundup Ready. In June 2010, Grist’s
senior food and agriculture writer, Tom Philpott, wrote an article titled, “How the
Agrichemical Industry Turns Failure into Market Opportunity.” In the article, he
refers to a June 4, 2010 Wall Street Journal article “Superweed Outbreak Triggers
Arms Race,” and mentions that the “superweed” argument has always been a
concern of activist groups such as Union of Concerned Scientists. Philpott mistakenly
says 2,4-D is listed by PAN as a “bad actor” and says that Dow AgroSciences is using
the Roundup Ready situation “as an opportunity to revive use of 2,4-D.”
In October 2010, Philpott wrote an article claiming Monsanto was paying farmers to
spray multiple pesticides on their RoundUp Ready crop. Philpott mentioned his June
article and said, “Companies like Dow Agroscience are dusting off old, highly toxic
poisons like 2, 4-D and promoting them as the ‘answer’ to Roundup's problems.”
Philpott suggests farmers should be looking for non-chemical ways to control weeds
such as crop rotations, mulching and cover crops and that Monsanto’s payments are
perpetuating the use of “poisons.” He suggests the Obama Administration is
supporting Monsanto’s work because the director of the USDA’s National Institute of
Food and Agriculture, Roger Beachy, is what Grist claims a “Monsanto man,” because
he worked at the Danforth Center at Washington University in St. Louis and
Monsanto’s CEO Hugh Grant is on the center’s board of directors.
III. Market Campaigns
If a market campaign or deselection of 2,4-D resistant crops were to take place, the
following is helpful historical information to begin to game things out.
The basic goal of any market campaign is to pressure a company to come to
agreement with activist groups on a specific set of issues. This agreement is then
taken to other companies in the industry. The key mechanism of a market campaign
is for activists to place pressure on consumer brands. This is effective whether the
ultimate target is a consumer product company or not, because the campaigners
have found that major downstream buyers can (and do) exert pressure on their
supply chains.
The activist campaign in the EU against GMOs was one of the most successful market
campaigns of the past 15 years. Activists from Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace
targeted major grocery chains and demanded that they not sell products that
contained GMOs. Once one major retailer in a market committed to a no-GMO
policy, the rest followed quickly as none could afford to have consumers worried
about the safety of the food the store sold.
A similar marketplace campaign failed in the United States. Activists from FoE,
Greenpeace, Organic Consumers Association and others placed pressure on Kraft,
General Mills, Frito Lay and other major consumer product companies. Success with
Frito Lay did not cause contagion throughout the processed food industry, and the
campaign floundered.
However, the practice of market campaigning has become far more sophisticated
since the early part of this decade. Campaigns to challenge mining, forest products
and industrial fishing operations have tested dozens of theories on how to move
companies and industries. Market campaigning has become a valuable tool for
activists to make change in public policy as companies have increasingly become
more brand-conscious and the green movement has caught on.
The multi-faceted campaign against Wal-Mart, especially, proved a number of
lessons to market campaigners. The most important of these lessons was the power
of retailers in the supply chain and retailers own sensitivity to their reputation and
brand. Since the Wal-Mart campaign began in earnest, almost all major market
campaigns have treated retailers as the strategic lynchpin. (This lesson obviously
could have been learned from the GMO campaigns in Europe, but it was not.)
In the case of 2,4-D resistant crops, a market campaign against Dow Agrosciences
has not been initiated and we have no indication that one is being built.
Nonetheless, activists know they would have a low likelihood of success at the
regulatory level, and could begin to develop a market campaign to reduce demand
for 2,4-D resistant seeds and crops.
IV. Outlook
With as the above as context, we envision potential campaigns against 2,4-D
resistant crops coming from two directions. One is a regulatory channel that will be
dominated by claims regarding water pollution, body burdens and endocrine
disruption. The other is a campaign in the marketplace. Unless something
unforeseen develops, the latter is likely to be more effective.
For 2,4-D resistant crops to emerge as a major regulatory issue, biotechnology
activists will have to add realistic mainstream organizations to their fold. Without
realistic organizations the concerns about 2,4-D will come from longstanding radical
and idealistic organizations known to USDA and EPA to ideological rather than
science based. These campaigns may gain attention, but they are highly unlikely to
sway regulators.
Recruiting new groups will be easiest through the strengthened case that herbicideresistant crops over time give rise to weeds that are resistant to the herbicide in
question. Groups such as NRDC and National Wildlife Federation are concerned
about pesticides and can be brought back into the biotechnology activism if they
come to find a way to justify 2,4-D as a priority concern or if they can be convinced
to join a larger anti-Dow effort.
NRDC is obviously the most likely on both of these counts. The organization has a
longstanding animus toward 2,4-D and it has battled Dow Agrosciences at length on
the chlorpyrifos issue. However, NRDC’s cooperation is not secured at this time, and
we do not think the group is likely to put significant resources into a 2,4-D related
campaign.
The Union of Concerned Scientists is another potential realistic group that could
become active on the issue, but this would require that it temper its longstanding
blanket opposition to agricultural biotechnology. UCS walks a fine line between
realism and idealism and its work on biotechnology has not been particularly
moderate or prone toward compromise.
The market campaign, on the other hand, would be more likely to succeed and it
have become a favored tool among activists looking to create change in public policy
over the last decade. While biotechnology-focused market campaigns in the United
States have failed in the past, the continued growth of a sustainable consumption,
natural-food ethic is challenging retailers and consumer product companies. As more
consumers come to prefer buying organic food, it will indicate to retailers the market
strength of people who shop with sustainable values in mind. This need not be a
significant percentage of the population, just one large enough to affect retailers’
market share.
A market campaign that focuses on Dow on one hand, and this element is in place,
and on the hazards of biotechnology on the other, could use deselection of 2,4-D
resistance crops as a key launching point for a broader campaign to change the food
supply through pressure on retailers.
Our analysis indicates that 2,4-D resistant crops appear to have a relatively clear
path to market despite the noise it might make in certain small segments of the
activist community. The threat of a market campaign that would reduce the use of
2,4-D resistant seeds and crops over the long term should not be ignored, however.