Fruit and vegetable industry feeling heat of anti-GMO attacks

The Clif Bar Family Foundation started a website called seedmatters.org, which promotes organic food using organic seeds, and it criticizes what it considers “industrial agriculture.” Its spokesman is Mr. Seed, a profane cartoon seed character who tells of the dangers of pesticides, GMOs and big agriculture. “Too many times conventional agriculture takes the white hat approach while food companies like Chipotle and Clif strike with negative retorts in the form of videos and cutting words,” said Randy Krotz, CEO of U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance, an agriculture advocacy group funded mostly by the beef and dairy industries. The agriculture producers that make up farmers and ranchers alliance need to battle emotion with emotion. The same is true of fresh produce. Whether it’s soothing consumer fears about GMOs as they become more prevalent in the produce department or trying to raise overall consumption, produce marketers have to win an appeal to emotions because that’s how consumers decide what to eat. link