“WHWG has always had their finger on the pulse of ag-tech issues well before any regulatory heartbeat is measured. I have always found them to be well-informed, well-positioned and well-intentioned. If only they were operating directly in Brussels, European farmers and consumers would, today, have more options and better food security.”

 David Zaruk, Ph.D.: Prominent Brussels-based blogger on agricultural technology at Risk-Monger.com

When environmental activists falsely charged that an essential agricultural input caused widespread environmental damage, media outlets in Europe and North America reflexively jumped on the bandwagon.

Soon the EU succumbed to the pressure and instituted a “precautionary” ban.

Two companies manufactured the product. WHWG was already working with one.

Management asked us for help in the US. In such a hostile atmosphere how could we get American media and regulators to listen to what science actually said?

Our research quickly revealed what none of the media had found and activists apparently did not want to find: data from governments around the world directly contradicted the activist claims.

We immediately mobilized an outreach campaign aimed at editorial boards and science writers. We enlisted agricultural scientists, farmers, and other experts to help get out the facts.

The result: Talk of an environmental catastrophe vanished from the press. A White House task force assigned to investigate the product backed down. After what seemed to many a period of indecision, EPA held fast to earlier determinations that the product was in fact environmentally sound.