An ABC news poll conducted last year found that 52 percent of people believe that GMOs are unsafe, and another 13 percent are unsure. A recent Harris poll ranked Monsanto third-lowest in corporate reputation among the country’s 60 most visible companies—ahead of only BP and Bank of America (slipping 9 positions from the previous year).
At one level, these poll numbers don’t mean a thing. Monsanto, as Fortune recently declared, “is an unstoppable Leviathan, and GMOs are here to stay.” More to the capitalistic point, the Fortune article continued, “Monsanto makes money no matter what.” The company expects to earn about $5.1B in the current fiscal year and double its earnings per share within the next 5 years.
I believe that public perception is very important to Monsanto. For one thing, no company wants to endure the market and political risk of being among the “most hated” in the world. To that end, here are three steps that Monsanto should consider to reverse the tide on the war for public sentiment:
1. Create a $100M X-Prize to find the dangers. Rather than attacking or dismissing negative studies, Monsanto should provide funding and incentives for more of them. It should rigorously dig into the potential dangers of GMOs. This would effectively tell critics: “Take your best shot. If your initial findings hint at potential problems, here’s a fund that will help you dig deeper.” To the rest of the world, such a move would proclaim both Monsanto’s confidence and its openness to find and fix any real dangers.
2. Commit to total transparency. Another accusation leveled at Monsanto is that it uses its patent claims and intellectual property protection laws to restrict access of independent researchers to GMO crops for research purposes. Researchers also complain that Monsanto doesn’t make its own research data available for independent verification. For this problem, to paraphrase an observation by Louis Brandeis, sunshine is the best disinfectant. Monsanto could go a long way to casting aside such doubts by making all data available to qualified independent researchers.
3. Surrender on GMO labeling. Given its resources and supporting science, Monsanto and other big companies could probably defeat most of the battles over labeling in the US and other parts of the world. But it would be a Pyrrhic victory that solidifies consumer skepticism. Better to surrender on this front and accept the additional cost and complexity of labeling to increase the chances of winning the larger battle for public confidence.
Read the full, original article: Monsanto should lose some battles to win the war over GMOs
