Only Organic, Stonyfield’s Gary Hirshberg promote “hate speech” against American farming?

There is a new video about farming which is so nasty and misleading that I believe it qualifies as “hate speech” for financial gain. Only Organic, a consortium of organic marketers, hired a professional ad agency to produce a YouTube video staging a fake elementary school performance about Old MacDonald vs New MacDonald–a critique of conventional farming.

A primary spokesperson for “Only Organic”, Stonyfield Farm Organics founder Gary Hirshberg, describes it this way:

only_organic_logoIn a playful way, our new video turns the spotlight on the true costs of conventional farming and the harm it does to environmental health. We hope people find ‘New MacDonald’ as engaging and shareable as our previous content and that it furthers the conversation around why going organic is beneficial to our environment. A world with more organic food and farming is the future we should choose for ourselves and our children.

Apparently Hirshberg considers it “playful” when:

Soon after the curtain comes up, the scene descends into chaos as the children assume the role of conventional farmers – injecting livestock with antibiotics, dragging out caged chickens and spraying toxic chemicals on genetically modified crops–all of it culminating in a pesticide plume that envelops the stage,

View it yourself–it’s hateful:

“Say good bye to ‘Old McDonald’s” runs a headline across the screen at the end of the playlet. “Choose a healthy future for our kids and planet. Choose organic.”

Sorry, Gary, but this depiction of mainstream farming is not “playful.” You might also want to see this definition of propaganda. It is certainly not something that “furthers the conversation.” It is a malicious distortion that demonizes the work of the small minority of citizens who still farm. It is designed to make consumers believe they must buy organic food to be safe and responsible. This is hate speech for profit! The indoctrination of the child actors only makes it more despicable.

Only a tiny fraction of rich world citizens have any direct knowledge of, or interaction with farming.  Thus most people have no base of personal experience from which to assess the validity of the emotive images that are used in these manipulative campaigns. Anyone who has actually spent time on farms and interacting with farmers knows that real farming is nothing like what is portrayed.

Not a new phenomenon

Unfortunately this sort of over-the-top, negative marketing strategy is not new. It follows the scarecrow_anchorScarecrow animated piece from Chipotle which is similarly manipulative. (see a good satiric take Farmed-and-Dangerous-Chipotlefrom Funny or Die). Chipotle also put out a Hulu mini-series called “Farmed and Dangerous” complete with exploding cows and hyper-evil characters. Chipotle calls their examples of “hate speech for profit,” “entertainment.” They also claim that their company is about “food with integrity.” Apparently not integrity that extends to their marketing activities.

Several years ago the Organic Trade Association sponsored a “Store Wars” video which wasn’t quiteStore_wars_poster_rgb as nasty, but still in the same basic genre.

What is “playful” or “entertaining” about trying to frighten people into buying your products by unfairly demonizing someone else?

What if organic farming and food received this sort of treatment?

To put this in perspective, imagine if there was a comparable group to “Only Organic” from the “Conventional” side. They could hire an ad agency to produce a video and stills depicting fresh fruits, vegetables and other foods sitting in pools of fresh, steaming animal excrement or having the same coming out of a manure spreader onto a ripe crop of lettuce or strawberries. They could call Organic, “Poop-based agriculture” and label their own products as “grown without the use of animal fecal matter.”

That would, of course, be an unfair,  nasty depiction of the organic requirement to use only non-synthetic fertilizers. But if this fictitious group had the morals of “Only Organic” or Chipotle, they wouldn’t hesitate to use that sort of emotive imagery. In contrast, when trying to counter the distorted “analysis” behind the Environmental Working Group’s highly irresponsible “Dirty Dozen List”, farming groups like the Alliance For Food and Farming take the high moral ground and tell consumers they can be confident in both the organic and conventional fruit and vegetable supply.

Consumers need to recognize when they are being manipulated for someone else’s gain

How should society respond to this sort of brazen, fear-for-profit behavior? As consumers we should vote with our dollars by boycotting all the products from the companies behind “Only Organic,” first and foremost Stonyfield Farms for its “leadership” role (see full list of companies at the end of this post). We consumers need to recognize when we are being manipulated for someone else’s gain.  Instead we can take confidence in the farmers who produce food that is remarkably safe and affordable.

I don’t believe that these marketing strategies reflect the ethics of real organic farmers, certainly none that I’ve met. Someone made the excellent suggestion that organic farmers could start a “not in my name” campaign to say that they don’t want to see the whole organic movement dragged down to this low level, and they don’t want to see their neighbors and fellow farmers maligned.

The farming community lacks the vast resources available to these big organic food marketers and their NGO allies like EWG. However, many farming community individuals are trying their best to get their side of the story out to the rest of society.  You can get their perspective on real agriculture by visiting these links:

Suggested boycott list of “Only Organic” member brands and entities. Write these companies and tell them that you don’t respect “Only Organic’s” hate speech!

  • Stonyfield
  • Annie’s Homegrown
  • Orgain
  • Naturpedic
  • Happy Family
  • Rudi’s Organic Bakery
  • Dr Bronner’s Magic
  • Organic Valley
  • Uncle Matt’s
  • Earthbound Farm
  • AllergyKids
  • Late July Organic Snacks
  • Nature’s Path
  • National Cooperative Grocers Association
  • Independent Natural Food Retailers Association
  • Pete and Gerry’s Organic Eggs
  • Honest Tea

This article appeared first in a slightly altered form at Dr. Savage’s blog, Applied Mythology, here.

Steve Savage is an agricultural scientist (plant pathology) who has worked for Colorado State University, DuPont (fungicide development), Mycogen (biocontrol development), and for the past 13 years as an independent consultant. His blogging website is Applied Mythology. You can follow him on Twitter @grapedoc

54 thoughts on “Only Organic, Stonyfield’s Gary Hirshberg promote “hate speech” against American farming?”

  1. Lie about industry funded studies, produce lots of ways of killing cells in vitro, make stunning claims, vandalize G.R. rice, Invade factory in Argentina,. This seems to be simply the next disgusting step. Thanks Steve

    Reply
  2. Can you imagine the howl if say National Farm Bureau or some other similar group produced a similar video with kids acting out some play about the benefits of modern agricultural technology and the shortcomings of past agricultural practices — organic crops withering, graphic comparisons of land, labor, water, fuel, inputs per unit of production — fields of chrysanthenums in Africa grown to supply the organic pesticide market in the U.S. rather than feeding people in Africa when a perfectly good synthetic version of the pesticide is available, etc .
    There would be indignant cries of exploiting and indoctrinating children to promote a commercial agenda.

    Reply
  3. Using ALL CAPs does not endow any truth to your statements. Monsanto is not also known as DuPont.
    What you, and many other commenters, seem not to grasp is that most of the people who read and comment here base their decisions upon solid facts established by properly conducted science. If there was any credible scientific evidence pointing to a problem with GMOs, then they would believe the evidence. The evidence has not been presented. They are interested in truth.

    Reply
  4. If you’re able to pick organic and Non-gmo so readily, as shown by their yearly sales, how could be anything be shoved down your throat?

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    • This is nice, but a little too “written”, not visual enough. People don’t read anymore (especially not that fast!).

      I wonder what would happen if conventional farmers all went on vacation one year. Call it a strike. Let people experience a little hunger again.

      Reply
  5. I have worked on farms. I have watched this video. Yes, it is dramatic, but hate speech? NO. Entertaining, sure. Disgusting, yup. but the real videos of commercial food production are much more frightening. If people actually saw how their food is grown, slaughtered, harvested, processed… most would lose their appetites. Ignorance may be bliss, but it is making us sick. I have been diagnosed with a serious GI tract illness that the doctors attribute to chemicals in the food… chemicals like Sodium Nitrate, Polysorbate 80, Round-Up (glyphosate) which is now banned in 60 countries. There is no family history of this illness, no genetic predisposition… just that I have been eating food, that now my body no longer tolerates without white blood cells attacking it… especially Soy and Wheat, which, in the US are almost all produced using GMO Round-Up Ready seed… and sprayed with lots and lots of glyphosate. Even beef makes me violently ill now… it never used to. What has happened in the last few years, that suddenly 80% of the foods I and my family have eaten all our lives, now makes me very sick? The blood tests say that it is the chemical additives and contaminants in the food (the blood tests also tested for many of these chemicals). The fact that Kellogg’s will put corn syrup in a breakfast cereal or snack bar, but on the label call it Fructose… that is just as misleading and even deceptive. This is not a war on the American Farmer, it is a battle between Big Ag and industrialized food production and consumers who deserve the right to know what they are eating. Have you even looked at the 19 ingredients McD’s puts in a chicken nugget? scary stuff. If it takes overly dramatic videos to wake people out of their junk food stupors and do something about it… so be it…. maybe the big food producers need to stop acting like tobacco companies, and actually try producing healthy food, instead of spending billions to convince us that GMO or tainted foods are safe and healthy. In the 50’s and 60’s… big tobacco hired many doctors for PR campaigns to tell us smoking cigarettes was safe, and even had health benefits. RJ Reynolds is a tobacco company, that bought Del Monte foods and Nabisco (who happens to make a lot of your processed snack foods). Phillip Morris Co (another huge tobacco company) , owns Kraft Foods (with subsidiaries Post Cereals, Oscar Mayer, Miller Brewing, etc)… Coincidence? Nope. Just business.

    If you people don’t have the stomach for debate over clean food… wait until we are fighting over clean water… oh, wait, due to hydraulic fracturing for oil production, and drought…. we already are.

    Reply
    • And what of the billions & billions & billions of $$$ these chemical cos. Have spent to win elections against labeling laws, advertisements to sell there products, pay offs to scientist, CO. Workers for there reports or SILENCE… THREATS to farmers, forcing them to plant there seeds & use there poisons, law suits against farmers who just happen to be on the receiving of cross pollination with the gmo crops, pay offs to farmers & home owners who were made sick or died from Chemical drift, chemical pools destroying the water source, life long health issues, from contact with the poisons used to grow gmos. False advertising with” non” farmers portraying local growers who do not want labeling because they were” told” it would cost them a fortune to label gmos, WITCH IS NOT TRUE. and countless other ways the big chemical & gmo cos have spent $ to force feed there bad science on to the world… So a few organic farmers fight back as they can & you act like its a all out ASSAULT, well IT IS… Get use to it. There is a whole bode of humans who are deeply concerned & will fight tooth & nail to shut down this abomination of the food chain.. Roundup is NOT a food group… Its poison. Just think of the possibilities if the big chem & gmo cos. Put all of there effort & $ behind a better organic way to grow & to clean up the poisons they have filled our soil & water with… We would be filling every humans tummies with healthy good nourishing Foods & we would all be so much better off for it.. Less health problems, moor & better water, food fit to eat, a better world.. But they would rather poison this earth than accept the fact humans don’t want to eat there products. And then they would need to dispose of it all, just where will all of that bad seed & billions of gallons of poison go… ? There in lies the problem.. They don’t have a clue… . .

      Reply
    • Round-Up (glyphosate) which is now banned in 60 countries

      Roundup is banned in 0 countries.

      especially Soy and Wheat, which, in the US are almost all produced using GMO Round-Up Ready seed

      There is no GMO wheat. Never has been.

      Reply
  6. This article is such propaganda bullshit. I hope everyone reading this actually educates themselves on this very real and pressing issue in America. Steve Savage…a corporate (Dupont by admission) shill at its worst…

    Reply
  7. Ha ha someone tells the truth and Monsanto shills get butt hurt. Hate speech??? Ahhhhhhhhhhhahahahahahahaha hate speech? Really. Ur funny when ur punked by some kids.

    Reply
    • The only kids involved in this were the child actors they hired. This was done by the Adult run “Only Organic” group.

      Reply
  8. Why doesn’t the multimillion dollar organic industry have the courage to make videos detailing how no-till increases soil compaction, necessitating increased tillage (& thereby wrecking beneficial fungi). Or how decades of its crusade against factories have limited sulfur availability to plants, necessitating more sulfur apps to soil, increasing energy inputs? I’ve heard an Organic Valley DVM strand in front of dairy guys & tell them that cattle disease can be managed by manipulating accupuncture meridians. Yep. Real credibility. That’s what the MULTIMILLION dollar organic industry is all about.

    Reply
  9. Calling those ad campaigns ‘hate speech’ turns the author into a hypocrite, and it is clear the author is spreading propoganda of his own in support of his own agenda. I think this article is hate speech against the organic movement. And I don’t even eat exclusively organic or worry about GMOs or anything. I just came across this article randomly, trying to find out if there is anyone out there calling out BS advertising that promotes plant and animal-based foods as ‘farm grown’ or ‘farm raised’ as though that’s something special (if you are growing or raising food, pretty sure you therefore have a farm) but as an intelligent consumer of goods and advertising, I found this author’s article manipulative and divisive in a way that ruffled my feathers much more than did the ads he called ‘hate speech’.

    Reply
    • Watch the disgusting organic propaganda video referenced above, and then come back and try to make a case that this isn’t “hate speech” against farmers. If you can justify it and minimize it and rationalize it, that says a lot.

      Reply
      • I have no need to trade barbs or justify/explain my opinion. I do however stand by it in all respects.

        Have a great day : )

        Reply
        • So, you justify the vitriolic hate speech against non-organic food by just refusing to discuss it, after alleging that the article pointing out that hate speech in the first place is itself hate speech. Irony hath no limits!
          Your comments show twisted, convenient denialist thinking, and extreme hypocrisy.

          Reply
          • That’s alot of judgment on someone you’ve never met based purely on my decision not to engage with you, but that’s your prerogative I suppose. You are entitled to your opinion and I have not implied otherwise, not sure why you feel the need to try to invalidate mine. Opinions can’t be validated or invalidated anyway, based upon my understanding of the word ‘opinion’. There is a great article in the 8/29 issue of Time you might benefit from reading, titled ‘Why we’re losing the Internet to the culture of hate’.

          • Lila, you come across as an entitled millenial who has never been challenged in her life.
            You posted your “opinion,” that well-respected Steve Savage is engaging in what you think is “hate speech,” when Steve’s article is about exposing the hateful and vitriolic organic industry that made that video. You posted your “opinion” voluntarily. And you react in petulant shock that anyone would have the temerity to challenge your “opinion.”
            You need to grow up. When you get out into the real world, your opinions, unless based on logic, science, rationality, and deeper thinking, will be worth squat. You will be seen as a foolish little girl with lots of “opinions” and a thin skin who cannot tolerate being asked to explain, defend, or justify these opinions — especially when they are as ludicrous as the ones you have posted here.
            You are going to hit quite a few bumps in life learning, dearie, and hopefully you will learn from them. Dump the “opinions” until you have done more research and thinking. Your “opinions,” combined with your arrogant and flippant attitude of “I don’t have to justify my opinions,” are not going to serve you well. Get off your high horse.
            You’re welcome.

          • Somewhere our education system has gone very wrong. Maybe when the Declaration of Independence was being taught and the part about “all men are created equal” was discussed, young people misinterpreted that and thought it meant “all opinions are created equal.” As you pointed out so well, all opinions are not equal. There are wrong ones and right ones.

          • And there are documented and supported opinions, and there are seat-of-the-pants opinions apropos of nothing. The latter get an F in my critical thinking class. I may not agree with someone’s opinion, but they damn well need to document why they think the way they do in a cogent and coherent way. Miss Priss above didn’t think she had to explain her opinion, and then huffed off when confronted. She’s gonna have a hard bunch o’ bumps in her road, I’m afraid. Some people are slower learners and have to learn the hard way.

    • Could you please specify those points in the article you find to be “manipulative and divisive”? Where is the hypocrisy and/or propaganda in Steve Savage’s report?

      BTW, if you’re legitimately looking for the vacuous “farm grown” label you will find it most often appearing on veblen goods like organic schlock and boutique yuppie farmers market claptrap. It’s part of the slippery snake oil pitch to separate a gullible shopper from her grocery money. Works every time.

      Reply
      • I have no need to trade barbs or justify/explain my opinion. I do however stand by it in all respects.

        Have a great day : )

        Reply
        • Wait, you said the exact same thing to me.
          So, you’re one of those hit and run commenters? Post careless comments but then not be around to defend them because you can’t? Stealth troll, we call that.

          Reply
          • I am able to make a comment, feel confident in it, and move on.
            Judge that as you may, if you feel the need.

            I am going to live my real life now, drinking my organic milk and my ‘regular ol’ white bread, both farm-derived, of course : ). Again, have a great day!

          • Of course you can choose to make a stealth troll comment, and ignore questions about the veracity of your comment, and then just sneak off. That is your choice, but the way you act indicates clearly the way you think, and your lack of commitment to your frivolous, careless, and shallow words.
            You are intellectually lazy, and you have a right to be. You choice.

          • I wonder if passing such judgment and being so divisive actually provides you with any real psychological benefit? I suspect the opposite. Please leave me alone, you’re being super rude.

          • I think exposing your contemptuous nature and your deceptive trolling is a public service. It lets all of us know just what sort of skulking losers derive pleasure from slandering modern farmers. As they say, it pays to know your enemy, especially the sick sneaky kind who are so easily brainwashed by flaming arseholes like Gary Hirshberg and the rest.

          • Millenials who have grown up entitled, who think that the sun shines out their arse, believe that their “opinions” don’t have to be challenged, questioned, examined, or debated. She’s shocked, deeply shocked, that a farmer and an academic would actually have the unmitigated temerity to call her out on her BS. Maybe it’s the first time. With her arrogant flippant attitude, it won’t be the last, because she is gonna have to get bucked off pretty hard from her high horse a couple dozen times before she learns to open her mouth without thinking, investigating, and analyzing. And yes, she is easily brainwashed, if she thinks Gary Hirshberg is the truth-teller and Steve Savage is the hatemonger. She’s got a hard, stony path ahead of her, and she better take off her stilettos if she’s gonna make it in this world.

          • Heh, yeah a sort of typical young troll, immobilized under the weight of their hubris. They desperately need to have some sense virtually cuffed into ’em, ’cause the real world will teach ’em some hard lessons they may never recover from. Brainless kids like her think you and I are pricks, heh, I could introduce ’em to some real folks out here in the real world that will make us look like cooing wet nurses.

          • Oh, with her arrogant and flippant attitude about her “opinions,” that she feels doesn’t have to respond to, she’ll find those folks soon enough on her own. The real world is gonna smack her with reality one of these days. She may even thank us for giving her the “heads up” on what is expected of a mature adult. Or not, if she’s a slow learner.
            Edit addition: Look at what she’s interested in. Click on her. Kanye West and the Kardashians. That’s her world. And she has the audacity to slam Steve Savage?

          • Heh, yeah I clicked before responding the first time, same way I insist we have some background around here before hiring millennials, especially. We have a neighbor with a small business who has learned a couple of hard lessons from these arrogant little snots.

          • So, here’s how her “opinions” are gonna work in the real world for her, in her first job. (Paid or intern, it doesn’t matter)

            Lila submits a report, full of her “opinions.” Her supervisor calls her into her office, and asks how she arrived at these opinions, and for the supportive data.
            Lila: “They are my opinions, and I don’t have to give any supporting data. I am confident in my opinions.”
            Supervisor: “Um, we need supportive data here before proceeding. Go back to your office and provide that, by the end of the day.”
            Lila petulantly stomps back in her stilettos to her little, windowless cubicle.
            She gets an email reminder from her supervisor 10 minutes later, which says “Remember to get me the supportive data by the end of the day. Thanks.”
            Lila’s response?
            She blocks her supervisor.

            Whaddya think? Pretty accurate? And the sequel? How’s that gonna work out for her?

          • Yep, and by next morning Lila’s parents have their attorney calling the CEO of the firm. Half a dozen administrative meetings rapidly take place. By week’s end Lila gets a promotion and a small raise and is transferred to the newly established “freestyle workgroup” (basically a play pen where millennials come and go pretty much as they please) and the supervisor is applying for work at McDonald’s…alongside more millennials with a millennial shift supervisor. That, sadly, is the real world in the new century.

          • My version is more optimistic.
            —-
            The supervisor asks, at the end of the day:
            “So, Lila, let’s talk about that data.”
            Lila responds: “I don’t need to justify or explain my opinions.”
            Supervisor: “Well, Lila, unfortunately your work does not meet our standards. Please clean out your desk, and Boris will escort you to your car.”

            And Lila blames “the system,” “corrupt bosses,” “unreasonable work conditions,” and files an HR complaint which is rejected on the grounds that Lila knew what the job expectations were and failed to achieve them. Lila never takes responsibility for her own actions and their consequences.

            Lila gets jobs walking dogs and working in nursing homes emptying bedpans, and never understands why her brilliance is not “appreciated” by the vox populi. Her life is one rough road after another because she never matures into an adult who takes responsibility for her own actions, instead clinging to her 19-year-old sense of entitlement for the rest of her pathetic life.

          • Your imagination lives in a just and fair world — I like it.

            But, like a spooky half-broke horse someone’s trying to sell you, better to sack out a green millennial while you are interviewing ’em or trying ’em out on approval to learn what you’ve potentially got on your hands. If you reject ’em in the first place your business can remain blissfully monotonous and productive. I like to think I’ve helped to dramatize the work life of one of my competitors — if it ever turns out I’m wrong I can probably hire a uniquely talented youngster away from ’em.

          • Yeah, the interviewing process should be more rigorous up front. A good supervisor will know how in an interview to ferret out any attitudes of entitlement, arrogance, and superiority. If these rejects have half a brain, they will look into the mirror, ask others for advice, lean a few things, and grow up. If they don’t have half a brain, then they will be confused all their lives about why they are only working for a few months at a time in McDonald’s, Walmart, the night shift at the bakery, or walking dogs and cleaning bedpans, and why no one can see their magnificent brilliance.
            I speak from experience. I’ve known a few of these petulant little whiners. Some of them learned. Some did not.
            I have learned through observation in the workplace that almost 100% of the time, when a person gets fired, it is not because they couldn’t do the job well enough, but because of their unprofessional attitude, their lack of people skills, their arrogance, their inability to work with others, their violation of workplace ethics, and their general inability to grow up.

          • Um, you are here voluntarily. “Please leave me alone” is a little girl’s immature and petulant way of avoiding the fact that you are being challenged on your ludicrous statement. Doesn’t work here.

          • And yet you disrespect farmers! Ah, delicious irony!
            Your “real life” is in your head, dearie. When you get over feeling entitled about your “opinions,” you will have taken the first step in getting over yourself and growing up.
            Read Byron Katie’s “Who Would You Be Without Your Thoughts?”

        • So you’re full of organic crap and proud of it. Typical True Believer. Got it.

          No need to explain your irrational opinions and you cannot justify them. Nobody cares anyway.

          Reply
          • Wow, I am shocked at how hateful people are to eachother when not face to face. I highly doubt you would speak to me that way in person. Please leave me alone, you’re being super rude. True believer? Sorry, but one thing I am definitely NOT is an ideological blowhard. The world is not a black and white place.

            Have a great day. Maybe do something nice for someone to offset the way you’ve treated me, it will probably feel better than continuing to bully me.

          • Heh, yeah we are “hateful’ but the shitty slanderous advertising you support is not. I guess you’ll get handed back what you would hand out, sis. That sort of reflection is what loopy losers call “karma”, isn’t it? Didn’t take much to trigger you unload with your true colors, did it?

          • You wanna do this face-to-face, dearie? You’re on.
            “Please leave me alone” is a petulant whiney little-girl response to avoiding any criticism, response, challenge, or questions about your godly “opinions.” Lord forbid anyone should challenge YOU!!! Bullying? Naaaah. Grow up. Put on your big girl panties and get into the real world. Your “opinions” without backup are just diarrhea of the mouth.

    • To those continuing to attack me for my opinion, be advised that you are truly wasting your time as I have taken the wise measure of blocking you so that I do not receive harassing emails or see your harassing comments. I hope you are able to find more positivity in your lives and ‘entertainment’ that is not based in hatefulness, for your own sake and the sake of those you come across.

      Reply
      • Fine, the equivalent of shoving your head back up your ass…where you find more “positivity” in your own life. Good riddance.

        Reply
        • She’s just gonna block anyone that doesn’t agree with her “opinions.” See how that works out for her in the real world. Arrogant little narcissist.

          Reply
      • Fine, dearie. That is utterly consistent with your previous “snark and run” comments. That is your M.O. That is how you operate. You are a petulant little millenial who considers her “opinions” as unchallengeable. Boy, do you you have a world o’ larnin’ in front of you!
        Other readers here will benefit from the discussion.

        Reply

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