An Urban's Rural View

Before we talk about the New MacDonald video, let's acknowledge the obvious: All organic-food marketing is comparative marketing. Explicitly or implicitly, organic marketing touts organic agriculture as superior to conventional agriculture.

It has to. The only reason to pay more for organic food is if you believe it's somehow better -- better for your health, better for the planet, better for whatever reason. Encouraging that belief is the organic marketer's job.

But is it the organic marketer's job to attack conventional agriculture? What if the attack blurs the line between legitimate criticism and misrepresentation? What if the attack is emotional rather than factual? Those are among the questions the New MacDonald video (http://tiny.cc/…) raises anew.

New MacDonald paints a toxic picture of conventional agriculture. It depicts a troupe of children wearing straw hats and un-tucked shirts singing a takeoff on "Old MacDonald Had a Farm." As they sing and sway, other children prance across the stage, acting out the song. At one point the prancers wear hooded protective suits, gas masks and scuba-like tanks and spray billowing white puffs at tall plant stalks. The troupe sings:

"And on that farm he sprayed some crops

E-I-E-I-O.

With some GMOs here and a pesticide there

Here a spray, there a spray

Everywhere a spray spray"

Suddenly a small yellow plane gliding down a rope on pulleys bombs the stage with more spray. A white cloud envelops the world. The piano thunders a dissonant chord, then pauses. Children shriek and flee, waving their straw hats at the cloud as they evacuate.

The video has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times since a group called Only Organic released it last month. The 17 organizations listed on the "Who We Are" page of Only Organic's website include 12 organic food companies.

Gary Hirshberg is the chairman of one of those companies, yogurt maker Stonyfield Organic. He describes the video as a "playful" way of showing "the true costs of conventional farming and the harm it does to environmental health" (http://tiny.cc/…).

Playful is not the word critics use. Blogger Steve Savage calls it "a malicious distortion that demonizes" conventional farmers (http://tiny.cc/…). Marketing organic food this way, Savage says, is unfair and unfounded. It's as if conventional farmers made a video labeling organic agriculture as "poop-based" and showing fruits and vegetables "sitting in pools of fresh, steaming animal excrement."

It's hardly surprising that supporters of conventional agriculture dislike the video. What's more surprising is that some supporters of organic agriculture don't like it, either. Negative advertising like New MacDonald, and like Chipotle's 2013 video "Scarecrow" (http://tiny.cc/…), strikes some organic farmers as unnecessary and counterproductive.

A Canadian organic farmer, Rob Wallbridge, argues on his blog that organic agriculture's problem isn't creating demand; it's creating supply (http://tiny.cc/…). For organic agriculture to keep growing, more conventional farmers need to switch to it. "And here's the real irony," Wallbridge writes. "Campaigns like 'New MacDonald' threaten to alienate the very people the organic sector needs most right now: farmers."

Mr. Hirshberg, meet Mr. Wallbridge.

Unity, it seems, is no more common in organic agriculture than it is in political parties or religions. For some of its devotees, organic agriculture is more of a cause than a business; for others the opposite is true. Some want tougher government standards for organics; others think the standards are too tough. Some back an organic checkoff to fund marketing, others to fund research.

The old maxim applies: "Where you stand depends on where you sit." Small organic growers and big ones sometimes have differing interests. So do growers and food companies. And as the New MacDonald controversy illustrates, there are even divisions among the food companies on some issues.

I sent emails to all 12 of the Only Organic companies asking them if they stood behind the video. Only one -- Annie's -- responded. Annie's was acquired last year by General Mills. Its take on the video was rather different from the view expressed by Stonyfield's Hirshberg.

"We have been a longtime partner with Only Organic but understand the concern around their recent campaign, New MacDonald, which we are not actively promoting," an email from "Team Annie's" began.

"We are passionate about organic farming because it's good for the planet, the farms and for families, but we want to assure you that Annie's supports ALL farmers: big and small, organic and conventional," the email continued. "If anything, we hope the recent New MacDonald campaign will bring about further conversation around how conventional and organic farmers can work together to make our planet a better place to live and eat— not only for our generation, but for many more to come."

New MacDonald has definitely brought about a conversation. Whether it will turn into a conversation about conventional and organic farmers working together remains to be seen.

Urban Lehner

urbanity@hotmail.com

(CZ)

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