Friends of Rural New York

Michele Payn-Knoper specializes in marketing, sales training and fundraising for the food industry.  Her clients include among many: Ag Retailer Magazine, AgroCulture Liquid Fertilizer, American Farm Bureau Federation, American Soybean Association, Feed & Grain Magazine, Indiana Farm Bureau, International Agri-Center/World Ag Expo, Monsanto Company, National Corn Growers Association and the National Pork Board.  The following statement on her website homepage is a presage to verbiage prevalent throughout the site, “Trusted as a food expert for three decades, she explains that very little separates GE (genetically engineered) food from the organic products so often recommended”.

Many of Payn-Knoper’s alarmist sound-bite headings from her homepage link to blank pages or to food industry sponsors such as: Fox News, News Media (fronts for the agri-business, the cosmetic industry and pharmaceutical companies), the ultra conservative ACSH (whose corporate funders include American Cyanamid, American Meat Institute, Amoco, Anheuser-Busch, Archer Daniels Midland, Boise Cascade, Chevron, Ciba-Geigy, Coors, Dow Chemical, DuPont, Exxon, Ford Motor Co., General Mills, General Motors, Kraft General Foods, National Agricultural Chemicals Association, NutraSweet Co. (Monsanto), Shell Oil, Union Carbide Corp., Uniroyal Chemical Co., and USX Corp), Decision News Media (publishes 24 Web sites providing breaking industry news and product and supplier information in the food, beverage, nutrition, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, science and packaging industries), and RISE (Responsible Industry for a Sound Environment, a national not-for-profit trade association representing producers and suppliers of specialty pesticides and fertilizers. In short, Ms. Payn-Knoper’s sources are the very industries she works for, as well as their lobbyists.

Ms. Michele Payn-Knoper’s website links to the IFT (Institute of Food Technologists) site to inform us, “Organic foods are not proven more healthful nor safer than their traditional counterparts, but nearly a third of all consumers want the choice to buy them.”
Indeed, this should tell Ms. Michele Payn-Knoper and her employers something.  But, the website-rhetoric insults the intelligence, integrity and evolved awareness of that “third of all consumers”.  The US Census states that the estimated population of the U.S. in 2004 was approximately 294,000,000, with around 74.3% of Americans being over 18 years of age.  Ms. Payn-Knoper implies that the “third”, (some 73,0000,000 )“consumers” who choose to buy organic foods are obtuse.

Ms. Payn-Knoper also directs us to a site entitled, Where Your Food Dollar Goes, stating, “farmers only receive 19% of every food dollar, with labor, marketing, packaging and others comprising the remainder of each food dollar.” Ms. Payn-Knoper’s Agribusiness CEO clients carve large profits for themselves, leaving farmers the chaff.

In Ms. Payn-Knoper’s recent article, Agrifood Connections ~ Mistakes of Our Industry, she exploits mercenary ultra-right strategies to boost the profit margins of her employers in the pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and agri-business industries.  She attempts to enlist New York State Farmers in her attempts to discredit traditional sustainable farming practices and organics.

In this article, Ms. Payn-Knoper admonishes her industry for, “Waiting too long to explain the reality of farming today (and) why do many city dwellers have the romanticized view of how their food is produced and negative image of “mega-farms”?”
In fact, it is industry advertising that perpetuates a romanticized view. How many city dwellers would want to purchase agribusiness food products if they could see the reality of factory farming?

Agri-business PR experts utilize specific buzz-words to incite distrust and prejudice against anyone who questions the motives and practices of the industry, branding them “city dwellers”, “move-ins”, “agitators” and “terrorists”. Payn-Knoper fails to mention that large numbers of farmers across the US and the world eschew the agri-business model.

Ms. Payn-Knoper appears to believe that the citizens of the United States and people
throughout the world have no right to question the origins and quality of the food they eat and serve to their children. She admonishes those who dare question, report or oppose Agri-business’ inherent negative impacts to air, water and food quality, and
their maltreatment of migrant workers and animals.  She commands us to allow the “Big Brothers”, the food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries, to take good care of us.

I entreat local, New York State and world farming communities and consumers to become empowered, do their own homework on these issues and refuse to allow industry hired-guns like Payn-Knoper to dictate what’s best for us, our children, our environment and our futures.
See:
http://www.michelepaynknoper.com/