Inside D.C.

Ag calls out Big Food — finally

This was a week when Big Food took it on the chin from farmers and ranchers while getting some stern fatherly advice from the secretary of agriculture. The one-two punch came because companies both domestic and global are wont to jump into the deep end of the food marketing pool without first learning how to swim.

If I could find a hat that fits, I’d doff it to six major U.S. agriculture groups which sent a letter to the CEO of The Dannon Company, the U.S. operating arm of Paris-based Danone, taking on the company’s “pledge” to source dairy for at least some of its yogurt brands from cows fed feeds containing no genetically engineered (GE) ingredients.  The ag groups called the marketing ploy “fear-based,” amounting to “flimflam” and consumer deception.  Given the conventional “niceness” of aggies, such language is obviously born of deep frustration.   Dannon, not surprisingly but unfortunately, called the letter “divisive and misinformed.”

Over at the national FFA convention, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack let the ag leaders of tomorrow know he’s concerned about food companies forcing costly production practices on farmers without a clue as to whether consumers will pay higher food prices when production cost hikes get passed along.

Back at the yogurt wars, the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), the American Soybean Assn. (ASA), the National Corn Growers Assn. (NCGA), the American Sugarbeet Growers Assn., and the U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance told Dannon CEO Mariano Lozano exactly how lame they believe the company’s marketing to be.

“In our view your ‘pledge’ amounts to marketing flimflam, pure and simple.  It appears to be an attempt to gain lost sales from your competitors by using fear-based marketing and trendy buzzwords, not through any actual improvement in your products.  Such disingenuous tactics and marketing puffery are certainly not becoming of a company as well-known and respected as Dannon.  Neither farmers nor consumers should be used as pawns in food marketing wars.”

Vilsack, expanding his warning to food companies, cited the mad shift by food processors to cage-free eggs, saying the shift is occurring “in isolation.”

“They did this as a marketing effort without any thought about precisely how many of these commitments were being made and essentially how the market was going to react,” the out-going ag secretary said to reporters.  He warned companies such uninformed marketing gambles may lead to consumers refusing to pay the higher supermarket costs.

“When food companies directly mislead consumers…individual farmers, as well as farm organizations, will continue to assertively defend our critical technologies,” said Randy Krotz, CEO of the U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance.  Bless Mr. Krotz for his declaration, and I’m glad there’s new-found fortitude. Unfortunately, this is not usually the case in attacks or abandonment of modern production practices.

It isn’t just about GE-free (safety questions are implicit in the claim) or cage-free egg confusion.  Marketing claims abound about vegetarian animal diets, hormone-free poultry (there are no approved hormones for poultry; all poultry are pretty much as God made ‘em), “farm-raised” ingredients (where else would they come from?); the lemming-like rush to “natural” flavors and colors when there’s nothing unsafe about the artificial varieties; organic as “better” (again, with an implicit safety claim), along with “healthy” and “natural” label declarations, the list goes on and on.  This marketing mojo joins unnecessary and expensive corporate “animal welfare” programs, and let’s not forget the omnipresent “sustainability” program and the automatic and very public declaration of responsible global citizenship.

But at whose cost?  It must be noted this marketing rush comes at a time when farm income is on its butt and farm foreclosures are accelerating.  Yet, I’ve not seen a corporate press release proclaiming a willingness to pay farmers a premium for inputs costing more to produce.  Come to think of it, I’m guessing those product prices aren’t all that static either.

It’s time to sit down and talk these things out, as equal partners in the food biz.  However, until then, the industry outrage must continue.  The next letter should carry not six, but 60 group signatures, and the letter after that, 160 group sign-ons.  Consumers need to hear farmers and ranchers will not be victimized by this year’s corporate marketing campaigns, that modern farm technology is not only, it’s absolutely necessary to feed the planet.