Just before Christmas Day, 2024, three months after a mendacious, coordinated activist onslaught, the communications consultancy, v- Fluence, began the process of closing down its monitoring services on biotechnology, crop protection, agricultural trade, and food system topics.
For the past 20 years, a large number of agrarians, plant biologists and researchers across the academe and industry relied on the daily news monitoring service to keep informed on activist campaigns, global regulatory developments and research advances. The daily emails from Jay Byrne, known as Bonus Eventus (favourable outcomes), arrived every morning without fail. I found their briefings extremely informative and am not alone in missing this irreplaceable service.
The Symptoms
An NGO called Lighthouse Reports published a document entitled “Poison PR” on 27 September 2024 that tried to expose v-Fluence as a key operator in global pro-pesticides lobbying campaigns, allegedly receiving US taxpayer funds to “force African farmers to plant GM crops” while working to undermine NGO activists. They spent tens of thousands of dollars and over a year researching the organisation, sending out multiple FOIAs but, in the end, had to resort to lies and wordplay to support their claims.
But the NGO was not interested in facts nor merely publishing a report. Coordinating with funders and special interest groups, they executed a series of actions to bankrupt a company. Their exploits have rewritten the book on how activist campaigns are now to be run.
- The NGO had networks of freelance activists, claiming to be journalists, in the U.S., France, the Netherlands, Australia, Kenya, India … that amplified the report for weeks afterwards, providing their own spin with syndicated articles and local NGOs developing their own campaigns to vilify v-Fluence at a global level.
- Lighthouse Reports had $800,000 in grants from the Oak Foundation and the Agroecology Fund. Money was no problem as the researchers were flying everywhere to interview the different actors in their story and induce activists. The Oak Foundation receives donor-advised funds (money donated by an interest group to be earmarked, anonymously, toward a targeted campaign) so the ultimate source of their funding is unknown.
- Several U.S. tort law firms were involved in the Lighthouse Report research. Confidential information from documents released in discovery from a paraquat lawsuit that involved one of the consultancy’s clients was leaked to Environmental Working Group activist, Carey Gillam, who was the de facto lead of the Lighthouse Reports campaign. Ms Gillam has a history of collusion with U.S. tort lawyers. Via Gillam, the class action litigators fabricated the corporate conspiracy narrative that became the activists’ mantra, reported as fact by their collaborating media partners.
- While the activists were running a month-long media campaign against v-Fluence and its supporters, law firms in the U.S. and Europe were filing further actions against the small consultancy, leaving them with no option but to lay off staff and begin the process of shutting down operations.
This is a snapshot of activism in the 2020s. Foundations provide NGOs with unlimited funding to work with media groups (also funded by the same foundations), academics and tort law firms to coordinate a massive onslaught of negative press, lawsuits and public outrage at a global scale.
But like the predatorial lions they are, we should not condemn them for eating the most vulnerable zebra. It is in their nature, as zealots, to ruthlessly attack to win a campaign (even if it involves multiple ethical transgressions). The cause of v-Fluence’s demise has more to do with how cowardly the herd had behaved.
The Cause
The v-Fluence founder, Jay Byrne, had tried, heroically, to survive the activist-led assault. Activists have honed a sophisticated campaign strategy, and the first attack phase had run its course. The activists and tort law firms had moved to the lawsuit harassment phase which the consultancy was fighting. But the third level of attack, to threaten v-Fluence clients (trade associations and several companies), cut off the consultancy’s oxygen.
Within weeks, the companies and trade associations wrote to v-Fluence to end their contracts and support, leaving an office of around 40 researchers and policy experts unemployed just before Christmas. The industry should have rallied to defend the organisation that has provided valuable resources and support (often without remuneration). They, instead, cowered to the litigator and activist threats, leaving them more vulnerable and exposed than ever before.
This is not the first time that industry has put its head between its knees rather than stand up to the activists, and, sadly, it won’t be the last. The sophistication of the activist-NGO-media-scientist-foundation-tort campaign coordination means they will continue to drive policy and narrative perception. The objective of the tort law firms was to portray the groups supporting GMOs and pesticides as ethically diminished. They will use that to generate jury outrage (to compensate for their lack of scientific evidence).
What was industry thinking the ultimate objective was?
Industry cowardice led to the loss of an important communications actor. Researchers need to tell their management that it is time to stand up to the zealots, to stand up to defend their industry and their innovative technologies.
Courage is badly needed, but, until now, it has been non-existent. Seed companies need to wake up.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Seed World.
David Zaruk is a professor based in Brussels writing on environmental-health risk policy within the EU Bubble. He writes a blog under the name: The Risk-Monger.
