Food & Water Watch - From Public to Private lyrics

U.S. agricultural research is performed mainly by three entities: the federal government, largely through the USDA; academia, almost entirely through land-grant universities; and the private sector. Since the 1970s, private-sector spending on agricultural research has skyrocketed, outstripping total public-sector spending. Between 1970 and 2006, the latest years for which data are available, total private agricultural research expenditures (both in-house research and donations to land-grants) nearly tripled from $2.6 billion to $7.4 billion, in inflation-adjusted 2010 dollars. Over the same period, total public funding — going to land-grant universities and the USDA — grew less quickly, rising from $2.9 billion to $5.7 billion. Land-grant university funding has mirrored the total expenditures on agricultural research. Federal funding of land-grant schools has stagnated, while industry donations have grown steadily. Over the past 15 years, industry funding of land-grant schools significantly outpaced federal funding. In 1995, private sector and USDA research funding of land-grant universities stood at about $560 million each (in inflation-adjusted 2010 dollars). But by 2009, private sector funding had soared to $822 million, compared to $645 million from USDA. The economic recession curbed research funding significantly, but USDA funding for land-grant schools fell twice as fast as private funding between 2009 and 2010 — dropping 39.3 percent and 20.5 percent, respectively. State funding for land-grant schools declined as well, leaving the institutions more dependent on corporate money to fund university research. Branding the Campus Agribusiness and food companies exert influence at the highest echelons of the university hierarchy. In addition to directly funding research at land-grant universities, many companies make other generous donations that curry favor with administrators, including laboratory sponsorship, building construction, student fellowships and faculty endowments. Building a Legacy of Corporate Influence Corporate donations for buildings give businesses a literal presence on campus. Monsanto's million dollar pledge to Iowa State University ensured naming rights to the Monsanto Student Services Wing in the main agriculture building.40!e University of Missouri houses a Monsanto Auditorium. Monsanto gave $200,000 to the University of Illinois's college of agriculture to fund the Monsanto Multi-Media Executive Studio, where industry seminars are held. Kroger and ConAgra each have research laboratories named after them at Purdue University's school of food sciences, which advertises other naming opportunities on its Web site. Campus buildings reinforce the company's brand identity, promote goodwill among faculty and students and are a powerful recruiting tool. The Corporate Meddling Department Many land-grant university agricultural research programs and departments rely on corporate donations for a sizable portion of their budgets. In addition, agribusiness sponsors fill seats on academic research boards and direct agendas. The University of Georgia's Center for Food Safety offers seats on its board of advisors for $20,000 to industry sponsors, where they can help direct the center's research efforts. Current advisory board members include Cargill, ConAgra, General Mills, Unilever, McDonald's and Coca-Cola. Purdue University's Food Science Department openly courts industry by allowing donors to influence curricula and direct research programs. Iowa State University's $30 million plant sciences institute board includes representatives of Monsanto and Pioneer Hi-Bred. Some departments are especially reliant on corporate donations: Purdue University's food science department received 37.9 percent of its research grants, $1.5 million, from private-sector donors between 2010 and 2011, including Nestlé, BASF and PepsiCo. Texas A&M's soil and crop science department received 55.5 percent of its research grant dollars from private-sector donors between 2006 and 2010, a total of $12.5 million from groups like Cotton Incorporated, Monsanto and Chevron Technology Ventures. University of Illinois's crop science department took 44 percent of its grant funding from the private sector, including Monsanto, Syngenta and between 2006 and 2010, amounting to $18.7 million.  Iowa State University's agronomy department took $19.5 million in research grants from private-sector donors between 2006 and 2010, representing close to half of its grant funding. Donors included the Iowa Soybean Association, Dow and Monsanto. Chairs & Professors Many companies will pay handsomely to endow faculty chairs. Monsanto's name is attached to a professorship at the University of Florida; the university requires a $600,000 donation to endow a professorship.54 In 2011, Monsanto gave $500,000 to Iowa State University to fund a soybean breeding faculty chair. Pioneer Hi-Bred funds five endowed Iowa State positions, including the distinguished Chair in Maize Breeding.56 Monsanto gave $2.5 million to Texas A&M to endow a chair for plant breeding. Kraft Foods gave $1 million to the University of Illinois's school of nutrition for a Kraft-named endowed professor, graduate fellowships and undergraduate scholarships. Many professors are highly dependent on industry for research funding. Nearly half of land-grant agricultural scientists surveyed in 2005 acknowledged to have received research funding from a private company. Texas A&M Animal Science Professor Jeffrey Savell took 100 percent of his research grants from industry groups between 2006 and 2010, more than $1 million from groups like National Cattlemen's Beef Association and Swift and Company. Texas A&M Soil and Crop Sciences Professor David Baltensperger took more than $3 million in research grants — almost all of his grant funding — from Monsanto and Chevron between 2006 and 2010. University of California Plant Pathology Professor Robert Gilbertson took 89 percent of his nearly $2 million in research grants from private sector sources between 2006 and 2010, including the Chippewa Valley Bean Company and Seminis Vegetable Seeds. University of California nutrition professor Carl Keen took $3.9 in private grants between 2006 and 2010, almost all of it from Mars. In addition to taking industry research grants, some professors supplement their academic salaries with corporate consulting fees. A 2005 survey found that nearly a third of land-grant agricultural scientists reported consulting for private industry.65More than 20 University of California, Davis professors have acted as paid consultants for biotech companies, some earning up to $2,000 per month. And Now a Word from Our Sponsors Farmers, consumers, policymakers and federal regulators depend on land-grant universities as a source of credible, independent research. But land grant universities' dependence on industry money has corrupted the independence of public science, as academics align their research projects with the ambitions of the private sector. Industry funding also diverts academic resources and attention away from projects that benefit the public, including research that challenges corporate control of food systems. The “Funder Effect” Donors can and do influence the outcomes of research to meet their business needs. More than 15 percent of university scientists acknowledge having “changed the design, methodology or results of a study in response to pressure from a funding source." Individual examples of pro-industry research abound: A study supported by the National Soft Drink Association found that soda consumption by school children was not linked to obesity An Egg Nutrition Center-sponsored study found that frequent egg consumption did not increase blood cholesterol levels. Candy manufacturer Mars donated more than $15 million to the University of California's Nutrition Department to study things like the nutritional benefits of cocoa.69 Mars used this research to tout the benefits of eating chocolate. Industry-funded studies are much more likely to arrive at pro-industry conclusions. A peer-reviewed an*lysis of dozens of nutrition articles on commonly consumed beverages found that industry-funded studies were four to eight times more likely to reach favorable conclusions to the sponsors' interests. Another study found that around half of authors of peer-reviewed journal articles about the safety of genetically engineered (GE) foods had an identifiable affiliation with industry.72 All of these produced favorable results to industry sponsors, while very few acknowledged having received industry funding. Many scientific journals do not require authors to disclose their source of research funding, despite the well-documented bias that industry funding can introduce. The conflict-of-interest disclosures that do exist vary and can be either weak, unenforced or both. Corporate Funding Curtails Public Interest Research Corporations have successfully discouraged many academics from critically examining their products and practices. In a 2005 survey, land-grant agricultural scientists reported that private-sector funding arrangements restrict open communication among university scientists and create publication delays.Seed companies have been particularly effective at quashing unfavorable research by exercising their patent rights. Seed licensing agreements can specifically bar research on seeds without the approval of the corporate patent holder.77 Scientists cannot independently evaluate patented seeds, leaving crucial aspects of GE crops, like yields and food safety, largely unstudied. When an Ohio State University professor produced research that questioned the biological safety of biotech sunflowers, Dow AgroSciences and Pioneer, Hi-Bred blocked her research privileges to their seeds, barring her from conducting additional research. Similarly, when other Pioneer Hi-Bredfunded professors found a new GE corn variety to be deadly to beneficial beetles, the company barred the scientists from publishing their findings. Pioneer Hi-Bred subsequently hired new scientists who produced the necessary results to secure regulatory approval. Scientists that persist in pursuing critical inquiries into biotech seeds can face reprisals. One university investigator anonymously told the prestigious journal Nature that a Dow AgroScience employee threatened that the company could sue him if he published certain data that cast the company in a bad light. A University of California professor, after reporting that transgenic material from GE crops cross-pollinated native corn varieties in Mexico, faced threats and attacks from scientists, government officials and a public relations firm with ties to industry. The rising importance of patents and licenses in research can stifle academic freedom and open scientific discourse. University of California, Berkeley scientists funded by Novartis were reluctant to discuss their research and collaborate with others because of Novartis's licensing rights under the grant. One Berkeley scientist noted “the little research that has been undertaken to explore unexpected and possibly harmful aspects of biotech deployment has been construed as intended to undermine Novartis-funded activities.” Public Research for Corporate Commercialization Corporate donors benefit from land-grant universities by poaching scientific discoveries used to develop new products. Land-grant researchers also act as contractors for food and agribusiness companies to perform product and market testing. The landmark 1980 Bayh-Dole Act pushed universities to take a more entrepreneurial role, generating revenue through producing patents that the private sector could commercialize.86!is legislation paved the way for growing industry influence over land-grant research agendas, as schools shifted their research agendas to meet the needs of private-sector partners. Public universities provided breakthrough research in agricultural biotechnology that fueled the development of Monsanto's signature products, recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) and RoundUp Ready crops.87 Cornell University scientists invented the first genetic engineering process, but sold it to DuPont in 1990 — essentially privatizing a very valuable a**et.88!e biotech industry's use of university research to develop highly profitable products — often of dubious benefits to farmers and consumers — is at odds with the mission of land-grant universities. These university-industry partnerships were expected to generate income for cash-strapped schools through licensing and patent earnings. In practice, corporate sponsors have captured most of the gains. Although most land-grant universities have “technology transfer” offices aimed at capitalizing on university inventions, few of these offices generate much money that can be funneled back into research programs. The University of California, Berkeley-Novartis collaboration exemplifies the conflicts and disappointments of university-industry partnerships. In 1998, the department of plant and microbial biology entered a $25 million funding agreement with Novartis, then the world's largest agribusiness company (the company's agricultural division is now owned by biotech giant Syngenta). Novartis received two of the five seats on the department's research committee, allowing it to influence the department's research agenda. The company maintained the right to delay publication of research results and was also awarded licensing options to 30 percent of any innovations the department developed, even those that it didn't fund. The $25 million yielded little. An external review found that the highly controversial partnership produced “few or no benefits” for either Novartis or the University of California in terms of generating patents, commercial products or income. Land-grant universities also contract themselves out as de facto corporate laboratories, conducting pre-commercial tests and biotech crop field trials. Industry hires land-grant scientists to conduct taste tests to predict consumer response to new foods. In 2010, more than half of the 206 grants at Purdue University's Food Science Department went toward “sensory evaluation research,” including multiple contracts with Hinsdale Farms, one of the world's largest corndog producers. Public Research for Regulatory Approvals While policymakers and regulators demand a scientific basis for policy changes and regulatory decisions over agriculture, agribusiness is financing the experiments and funding the scientists. The regulatory approval process requires companies to submit field and laboratory testing data for new food and agricultural products, such as biotech seeds. Land grant research, paid for by industry, lends credibility to corporate regulatory applications, greasing the wheels for approval of safety of controversial, new products. The seed industry funds universities to conduct pre-commercial evaluations, such as field-testing for biotech crops, banned in other countries out of concern about their safety.98 Almost all the Monsanto grants to the University of Illinois crop science department funded projects like field-testing Monsanto products. One Cornell professor was a paid Monsanto consultant while also publishing journal articles promoting the benefits of rBGH for dairy farms. His research was used in Monsanto's regulatory submissions to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Despite FDA approval, rBGH has not been approved for commercial use in the European Union, Canada, Australia, Japan and New Zealand due to concerns about the drug's impact on animal health. Conversely, biotech companies prohibit independent research of their patented products, effectively limiting the public's ability to understand risks and preventing scientists from submitting critical comments to federal regulators, a crucial role that public researchers should play in regulatory and policy development. One land-grant professor noted that these restrictions on independent research give companies “the potential to launder the data, the information that is submitted to EPA.” The professor was one of 26 university scientists, most from land-grant universities, who submitted an anonymous letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2009 explaining how restrictive patent and licensing agreements prevent scientists from pursuing objective research necessary to provide impartial guidance to regulators. Their letter read: These agreements inhibit public scientists from pursuing their mandated role on behalf of the public good unless the research is approved by industry. As a result of restricted access, no truly independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions regarding the technology, its performance, its management implications, [insecticide resistance management], and its interactions with insect biology. The 26 scientists who wrote to the EPA in 2009 withheld their names for fear of being blacklisted and losing private-sector research funding. Regnat Populus: The People Rule in Arkansas Two of the biggest food companies in the world — Arkansas-based Tyson Foods and Walmart — have benefited from their generous donations to the University of Arkansas. !e names Tyson and Walton are now emblazoned across the Arkansas campus following hundreds of millions of dollars in donations. The campus's largest research facility is in the school of Poultry Science housed in the John W. Tyson Building. The Tyson empire — through Tyson Foods, the non-profit Tyson Foundation and related foundations controlled by the Tyson family — has endowed six of the agricultural college's 15 chairs. Between 2002 and 2010, Tyson donated more than $15 million to the university, including poultry sciences scholarships, an endowed food safety chair and a research center bearing the Tyson name. This philanthropic giving effectively generates positive public relations and favorable research from the university that supports Tyson's business practices. For example, in 2005, Tyson Foods faced allegations of inhumane poultry slaughtering practices that were caught on tape. Tyson responded by conducting an animal welfare study, concluding that its existing slaughtering practices were humane. Tyson then hired a professor who held one of its funded chairs at Arkansas (through a $1.5 million endowment) to confirm its findings.114 In 2011, the university launched a new Center for Food Animal Well-Being, funded with $1 million each from Tyson Foods and the family of Walmart founder Sam Walton. The center's director openly lauded “large-scale confinement rearing,” a euphemism for factory farming, as a “good thing.” Tyson's influence pales in comparison to Walmart and the Walton family. The Arkansas Razorbacks basketball team plays in the Bud Walton arena. In 1998, the Walton family donated $50 million to Arkansas's business school, which was renamed the Sam W. Walton Business College; two Tyson and three Walmart executives sit on the advisory board. In 2002, the Walmart empire gave $300 million to the university, then the largest donation to a public university ever. The money was earmarked to endow research chairs, fund doctoral fellowships and finance research programs in fields including food sciences, biotechnology and the use of electronics in packaging. By 2007, the University of Arkansas credited Walmart with donating more than $1 billion. This amount included contributions squeezed from the company's suppliers. This philanthropy provides Walmart with a major return on investment. As Walmart rolled out its controversial radio-frequency identification (RFID) supply chain management technology, the Sam Walton Business School provided research in support of the technology. Walmart's RFID program mandated that suppliers pay the high cost of installing RFID chips into products or packaging. Meanwhile, for the retailer, the RFID chips would reduce inventory costs and allow the company to monitor consumer purchases. One study estimated that the average Walmart suppliers would spend $9 million the first year to comply with the RFID regime. In contrast, Walmart would see a $287 million annual benefit through automating inventory and price checks. After a 2007 Wall Street Journal article reported on the controversy surrounding Walmart's aggressive RFID campaign, Walmart promoted an “independent” study touting RFID's benefits. This unnamed study appears to come from the University of Arkansas RFID Center, founded with Walmart money and housed in a building owned by a Walmart vendor. In 2010, the Wall Street Journal exposed consumer privacy concerns a**ociated with Walmart's RFID chipping of clothing items; in the article, a Walmart funded Arkansas professor defended the use of RFID. South Dakota: Privatizing the Land-Grant University At the South Dakota State University (SDSU), corporate influence extends all the way to the top. SDSU president David Chicoine joined Monsanto's board of directors in 2009 and received $390,000 from Monsanto the first year, more than his academic salary. Simultaneously acting as a director of the world's largest seed company and the leader of South Dakota's largest public research institute raised obvious conflict-of-interest concerns. One state senator proposed legislation barring Chicoine's corporate appointment, observing that Monsanto was “trying to buy influence at the university by buying influence with the president” and that “makes it look like we're in the hip pocket of Monsanto.” Weeks before Chicoine joined Monsanto, the company sponsored a $1 million plant breeding fellowship program at SDSU. Chicoine's appointment at Monsanto also coincided with a new SDSU effort to enforce university seed patents by suing farmers for sharing and selling saved seed. A millennia-old practice, saving seed allows farmers to reproduce their strongest plants from previous years and avoid the cost of purchasing seed. Historically, land-grant schools have developed public seeds that farmers freely propagated, saved and shared. Recently, however, SDSU joined the Monsanto subsidiary WestBred in a public-private program called the Farmers Yield Initiative, which sues farmers for seed patent infringements — using private investigators and toll-free, anonymous hotlines to uncover possible illegal use of seeds, such as selling saved seeds. These aggressive practices come straight out of playbook of Monsanto, which has filed dozens of patent infringement lawsuits against farmers. In 2009, SDSU filed suit against South Dakota farmers for the first time, alleging illegal use of SDSU-controlled seeds.137 One accused farmer called the lawsuit a “rotten scam” in which SDSU purportedly entrapped him to violate university patents by running a fake “seed wanted” ad in a newspaper. He and four other farmers settled the 2009 cases for more than $100,000.139 In 2011, SDSU settled another lawsuit against a farmer for $75,000.140 Farmers not only paid damages but also consented to allow SDSU inspect their farms, facilities, business records and telephone records for up to five years.141 SDSU is not alone in suing farmers over seed patents. Texas A&M, Kansas State University and Colorado State University have pursued similar lawsuits against farmers. What makes the university lawsuits against farmers more offensive is the fact that SDSU wheat seeds were developed with farmer and taxpayer dollars. South Dakota farmers pay 1.5 cents to the South Dakota Wheat Commission for every bushel of wheat they produce (known as a check-off program). About 40 percent of this check-off money, totaling more than $870,000 in 2009, funds SDSU wheat research. These check-off dollars funded the development of many SDSU wheat varieties, including the Briggs and Traverse varieties involved in the SDSU farmer lawsuits. The USDA, using taxpayer money, has awarded SDSU at least 50 wheat research grants, averaging $108,000 each, some of which also contributed to the development and registration of the Briggs and Traverse varieties. Government Research Dollars The USDA spends around $2 billion a year on agricultural research, funding its own scientists and those at land-grant universities. Unfortunately, the USDA's research agenda mirrors corporate-funded research, directing dollars toward industrial agriculture. The National Academy of Sciences found that USDA research prioritizes commodity crops, industrialized livestock production, technologies geared toward large-scale operations and capital-intensive practices.149 For example, the Farm Bill dedicates little funding to more sustainable farming programs like the Organic Agriculture Research and Education Initiative and Specialty Crop Research Initiative (covering fruits and vegetables), which each represent just 2 percent of the USDA's research budget. The bias toward industrial agriculture is unfortunate given the USDA's unique position to address public research needs that the private sector will ignore, such as those related to health and the environment. As the National Resource Council notes, “no other public agency has the resources, infrastructure, or mandate to support research focusing on the interface between agriculture and the environment.And this is where private-sector research is highly unlikely to fill the void.” The USDA prioritizes research dollars for commodity crops like corn and soybeans, which are the building blocks of processed foods and the key ingredients in factory-farmed livestock feed. Although the agency boasts that fruits and vegetables comprise almost half of the total value of crop production, the USDA spends relatively little on fruit and vegetable research.152 In 2010, the USDA funded $204 million in research into all varieties of fruits and vegetables, less than the $212 million that was spent researching just four commodity crops: corn, soybeans, wheat and cotton. The USDA also generously funds research into crops that produce oils and sugars that are used to manufacture processed foods. In 2010, the department spent $18.1 million researching sugar crops (including sugar cane and sugar beets) and $79.4 million on oilseed crops (including soybeans, canola and palm oil). The USDA's prioritization of sugar and fat research is disconcerting given the current diet related epidemics of diabetes and obesity. !e USDA dedicates more research to sugars than to nutrition education and healthy lifestyles combined ($15.5 million and $1.3 million, respectively). Much of the research funding for commodity crops implicitly or explicitly goes toward genetically engineered (GE) crops because the vast majority of the corn, cotton and soybeans grown in the United States is GE. This funding can act as corporate welfare because, for example, Monsanto and DuPont alone control 70 percent of the corn and 59 percent of the soybean seed market. At the same time, the USDA has largely failed to investigate potential environmental and food safety risks of GE crops. Between 1994 and 2002, the USDA funded more than 3,000 plant biotechnology studies: none investigated possible unintended toxins and only two examined potential allergens in GE food. USDA's pro-biotech research bias was highlighted with the 2009 appointment of Roger Beachy, a major biotech advocate with strong ties to Monsanto, to lead USDA's main agricultural research program (a position he vacated in 2011). Other federal research agencies, like the National Academy of Sciences, have conducted very little food safety research on GE foods — and actually demonstrate a bias toward reporting the benefits of biotechnology, according to one peer-reviewed study.160!is leaves the public in the dark about the potential threats of GE crops, even as other countries limit or prohibit GE cultivation and marketing