The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) has spent $ 48,000 in mandatory
member contributions to monitor groups that oppose the accelerating
consolidation and concentration of hog farming. According to internal NPPC
documents leaked to Alan Guebert, an agricultural journalist from Illinois,
the council hired the PR firm Mongoven, Biscoe and Duchin in 1996 to
investigate six family-farm and sustainable-agriculture organizations, many
of whose members fund the NPPC each time they sell a hog. John Stauber,
editor of PR Watch, describes Mongoven, Biscoe and Duchin as the
pre-eminent "spies for hire" of the PR industry. In the early '90s, the
firm mounted an extensive covert operation against consumer advocates who
opposed the FDA's approval of Monsanto's bovine growth hormone. Despite
appearances to the contrary, NPPC spokesperson Charles Harness told
Guebert, "This is not an enemies list." -J.B.
--END COPY--
From
In These Times, March 17, 1997
itt@igc.apc.org