SOC/AG-BIO: AgBio Industry Beginning to Wake Up

From: GBurch1@aol.com
Date: Wed Jul 19 2000 - 15:20:30 MDT


Looks like someone's finally waking up . . .

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=7358

FEATURE - U.S. food industry targets biotech education
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July 6, 2000
CHICAGO - The U.S. food and agriculture industry is standing by biotechnology 
and renewing efforts to persuade consumers that to know high-tech foods is to 
love them. 
 
Experts at an International Food and Agribusiness Management Association's 
conference in Chicago last week said the industry recognised that billions of 
dollars' worth of research into engineered foods means nothing without 
consumer acceptance.
The comments by industry leaders follow a rising awareness in the United 
States of protests and questions about genetically modified crops, which have 
prompted consumer boycotts in Europe since last year and caused reduced 
plantings this year of some GM varieties such as corn and soybeans.
"Perhaps the greatest challenge we face lies not in the area of technology 
but in marketing," David Rowe of Dow AgroSciences, a unit of Dow Chemical 
Co., told a session on food technology. Agribusiness has spent only "trivial" 
amounts on marketing, Rowe said, compared to the massive dollars invested in 
technology.
This has cost companies in consumer mistrust of genetically modified 
organisms (GMOs) and biotechnology, he said, adding that to make 
biotechnology investments pay off firms need to give more consideration to 
consumer needs and education.
MARKETING 'UNDERFUNDED'
"Difficult marketing solutions in the short term come from underfunding 
marketing in the last decade. The greatest challenge facing the agricultural 
industry lies in identifying needs that are worth the cost of the 
investment," Rowe said.
Consumer education has not been a top agribusiness priority in recent years, 
said well-known agriculture industry consultant Carole Brookins, the chairman 
of World Perspectives Inc.
"Until recently biotech companies and agriculture in general thought that any 
new technology would be accepted by consumers because it always had been in 
the past," Brookins said.
"They didn't realise the world had changed, and that there had been a great 
effort to discredit large corporations and also discredit food technology by 
various groups."
Now some of the major players in agricultural biotechnology have banded 
together to put forth their message.
Seven companies and the Biotechnology Industry Organisation in April formed 
the Council for Biotechnology Information, which has developed a $50 million, 
three-to five-year agenda for building public support for high-tech foods.
Ted McKinney, a Dow AgroSciences spokesman who has been working with the 
council, said it wants to highlight how biotechnology can cut pesticide use, 
help feed the world's growing population and make foods healthier.
LOSE THE TERM 'GMO'
Also, McKinney told the conference: "Let's lose the term GMOs." He suggested 
using "food biotechnology" or "agricultural biotechnology" instead.
Some at the conference blamed the public schools for failing to educate 
consumers about science.
William Spain, Del Monte Foods' chief corporate affairs officer, said 
consumers' increasing isolation from agriculture is something the industry 
will have to address. "There is more and more a limited personal experience 
with agriculture and food, which gets in the way of understanding a lot of 
the things that we're doing in the food business these days," he said.
The industry's focus on consumer education and marketing comes well after the 
widespread acceptance of biotechnology by farmers and grain processors.
In 1999, genetically modified seeds designed to produce their own 
insecticides or withstand powerful new herbicides comprised 57 percent of the 
U.S. soybean crop and 29 percent of the U.S. corn crop, the Department of 
Agriculture said.
E. Berry Summerour, an agricultural analyst with investment bankers Stephens 
Inc., said he expected consumer suspicion of GMOs to fade in the next few 
years as the industry markets more consumer-friendly products such as rice 
with higher vitamin A content or edible vaccines.
"It's going to take a lot more communication, and it's going to take some of 
these products to get to the market without fumbling," Summerour said. "But 
it (biotechnology) is going to be here, it's going to be a fact of life." . 
Story by Julie Ingwersen 
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE  


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