Assessment on 2,4-D Resistant Crops Activism

I. Overview

Environmental, 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 beis expected to will be coordinated. The opposition appearsThese groups appear are unlikely to be able to result bring about in the withdrawal of registration or in 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 , serveing as a proxy for a number of disparate battles that activists have been waging for more than a decade.

Anti-corporate opposition critics of to Dow Chemical and its subsidiaries are first, and possibly likely to be the most potent importantsource of opposition to , place where 2,4- D resistant seeds. could serve as a proxy. Activists 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, bioaccumulativebioaccumulative 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 it is led by 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, however, appears to have 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 remains to be seen if it can could be spun up again quickly be reinvigorated if conditions activists and funders see a new opportunity to challenge the company. Foundations are already investing in Agent Orange merit.

activism in 2011, which will 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, particularly 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, to remind the public they were right about herbicide resistance, and to 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 on the basisclaiming 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.

Therefore, With this in mind, pProduct deselection is 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 restaurantsretailers using 2,4-D resistant crops are also subject to rbusiness risk.

II. Key activist groups and issuesplayers

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 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 manages theused 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 will 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 bad thing that must stop.

A few, notably PANNAOrganic 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 anti-biotechnology 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 leakaccident. Anti-chemical industry activist Gary Cohen, the founder of Environmental Health Fund, cobbled these various issue concerns into one campaign in 2002, and he called it theknow 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 chapters on 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, tThe 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 intend to bring significant attention tohave 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. 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 anti-biotechnology activists working against 2,4-D resistant crops will likely find the campaign against Agent Orange to be quite helpful.

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 anti-biotechnology 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.ich …

In 200910, 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 1,2,3 for x,y, and z. 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.