Monsanto Co., the world’s largest seed company and the target of protests against genetically modified organisms, will start running a series of television advertisements in Hawaii next week to improve its image.
“Over the past 18 months, the company learned that many residents did not have a strong awareness of who Monsanto is or what it did in the islands,” the company said in a news release Thursday. “As a result, Monsanto Hawaii has developed a series of advertisements that will begin running next week to help ensure better understanding of Monsanto Hawaii’s activities and the people who work there.”
The first of three ads features a Monsanto employee driving an old pickup truck through verdant fields, saying Monsanto adds $550 million to Hawaii’s economy, $30 million to tax coffers and 1,400 jobs.
Monsanto grows GMO seed crops in Hawaii. The advertising campaign comes after the islands of Kauai and Maui moved to limit GMO use.
In November Maui voters narrowly adopted a moratorium on GMO activity until studies can be conducted that show GMOs to be safe. Monsanto contributed $5 million of the $7.9 million spent by opponents of the proposed moratorium. Proponents spent only $64,000 but won the vote 51 percent to 49 percent.
In November 2013 the Kauai County Council overrode Mayor Bernard Carvalho’s veto to pass a law that required disclosure of some pesticide use and genetically modified crop cultivation and restricted some crop-growing and pesticide use near schools and nursing homes.
Both laws have been held up in federal court and have not yet taken effect.
Mark Sheehan, an architect of the Maui GMO moratorium and board member of the Shaka Movement, said Monsanto is running the ads now because there is a hearing scheduled for Monday in federal court to decide whether to allow the moratorium to take effect.
Monsanto “has a national and global image problem, and they are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to change it,” Sheehan said.
Sheehan said one of the more recent image problems for Monsanto came in March when the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer announced that the main ingredient in Monsanto’s RoundUp pesticide, glyphosate, is “probably carcinogenic to humans.”
Monsanto declined to say whether the ads were in response to efforts in Hawaii to restrict GMO use.
“This advertising campaign is part of our ongoing efforts to reach out to our neighbors, share information about our company and engage in a positive and informative dialogue with the community,” said John Purcell, Hawaii business and technology lead at Monsanto Hawaii, in an email.
“We understand that a lot of people aren’t aware of who we are or what we do in Hawaii or around the world. This ad campaign is one way for us to keep reaching out to our local communities and dispel myths that may exist about us,” Purcell said.
Monsanto said it has also started a Hawaii-specific website, a Facebook page and a Twitter page. The company is also conducting farm tours and neighborhood walks.
“Based on thousands of conversations with residents throughout the state, we’ve heard loud and clear that Monsanto Hawaii needs to do more to educate the public about our local farms. This ad campaign, highlighting the hard working, local employees of Monsanto, is one piece of how we are doing just that,” said Purcell.
