This is a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse of a war of influence. The war waged by the US against countries wishing to strengthen their environmental regulations whenever they are likely to harm the export power of their agriculture – to the point of using the same methods as polluting industries and even the same public relations firms. Under former president Donald Trump, the US administration called on such firms to torpedo the “Farm to Fork” (F2F) strategy, designed to “green” European agriculture.
Defending pesticides and genetically modified organisms at all costs, hindering any strict regulation of their use, denigrating organic farming and undoing Europe’s agro-ecological ambitions … similar operations have been conducted in Africa and Asia to promote the adoption of transgenic crops and the unfettered use of synthetic agricultural inputs.
Obtained by investigative media outlet Lighthouse Reports and shared with Le Monde and other international media, internal documents from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) show that the US administration used two communications and reputation management firms to achieve this. The first is the White House Writers Group (WHWG), which is based in Washington. The second, v-Fluence, is a small company of around 20 employees founded in 2001 and headed by Jay Byrne, former head of communications at Monsanto. Based in St. Louis, Missouri, it manages a private database at the heart of pro-pesticide propaganda called “Bonus Eventus” and specializes in advising agro-industrial firms – including agrochemical companies which would also have a lot to lose from a hypothetical agro-ecological turnaround in Europe.
Europe’s far-right, from Fidesz to Reconquête!
To understand, we need to go back to May 20, 2020. On that day, the European Commission announced the broad outlines of two new strategies: “Farm to Fork” and the Biodiversity Strategy, intended to be the agricultural component of the European Green Deal, launched a few months earlier. In particular, the aim was to “reduce by 50% the use and risk of chemical pesticides” and to have “at least 25% of the EU’s agricultural land under organic farming,” in response to the scientific consensus on the need to make agricultural and food systems more sustainable.
The US administration feared that new European standards could give rise to “discriminatory” measures and threaten its exports. According to documents consulted by Le Monde, the USDA, assisted by WHWG, was preparing its response as early as July 2020. Its gateway to Brussels, the heart of EU power, was the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) parliamentary group. An internal memo from the USDA described it as a group “sympathetic” to American interests, which “often challenges EU supremacy over Member State laws and regulations” and is “relatively right-wing.” In reality, it includes Europe’s most extreme far-wing parties, from Hungary’s Fidesz to Italy’s neo-fascist Fratelli d’Italia, via Eric Zemmour’s Reconquête! movement in France.
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Publish date : 2024-09-28 16:59:00
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