Excerpts:
The Washington, DC-based National Press Foundation announced that they’re taking applications for an upcoming all-expenses-paid journalism conference called “Food, From Farm to Table.” The conference promises to “take a holistic look at the issues: hunger, food waste, organic, GMOs, food science, feeding the world’s growing population, and more.” That’s cool, if you don’t mind that one of its major sponsors is Monsanto, that the program includes a visit to the controversial agrobiotech company’s research labs, or that this sounds a whole lot more like a press junket than a journalism conference.
There are three other sponsors of what NPF president Sandy Johnson described on Twitter as a “free 4-day reporting bootcamp,” of which Monsanto is the only for-profit corporation. Reached by Eater for comment, Johnson disclosed that the total donation amount across all four sponsors is $100,000, which covers conference costs for 20 journalists plus speakers and NPF staffers, including travel, hotels, meals, and NPF-branded tote bags, notebooks, and pencils. Johnson refused to provide the precise amount of Monsanto’s contribution, or to say whether sponsorship amounts were evenly or unevenly divided across the four organizations.
Johnson did say that she personally initiated the NPF’s sponsorship relationship with Monsanto after she found herself seated next to a member of the Monsanto board of directors at a dinner party in January. She also said that once Monsanto signed on as a sponsor, the NPF decided to locate the conference in St. Louis in order to include a visit to the company’s labs in their programming. When asked if she was familiar with Monsanto’s controversial reputation, Johnson replied, “In whose eyes? In your eyes? I’m familiar with the Monsanto that created research and science around agriculture that has allowed the United States to feed the world.”
Read the full article here.