Food industry confusing customers

In free market mythology, the entrepreneur humbly offers his or her product to the customer, who might or might not buy it, for whatever reason. The reasons don't have to be rational -- advertising often appeals to the irrational ("Drink Bigbutt Beer and skinny blondes in tiny bikinis will fight over you!") That's the theory, anyway: consumer choice.\n Recently, I found a discarded copy of a magazine for food managers in restaurants and institutions. A reference on the cover to "the uproar over genetically-engineered foods" caught my eye. Curious to see how this controversy was being packaged for food professionals, I had a look -- very interesting.\nFirst, an editorial deplored a full-page ad in the New York Times that contained "inflammatory" attacks by "Luddite" conspiracy theorists, not only on biotechnology but on factory farming, corporate globalization and the World Trade Organization. The editor allowed judiciously that some companies, "are more concerned with producing profits than the most desirable consumer benefits," and even the United States Department of Agriculture "has relied entirely too heavily on claims of safety by the seed companies themselves." Why shouldn't they, if only demented tree-huggers see a problem?\nThe gloves came off in the feature story: "Greenpeace-addled Euros" have raised a "needless stink over perfectly safe genetically-engineered crops," and the "ruckus" may cross the Atlantic to the United States. "One survey, taken by Time magazine, showed 81 percent of Americans favoring new labeling regulations to identify foods that contain genetically-engineered ingredients." It may sound reasonable to the layman, but the food industry knows better. \nCongress considered a labeling bill, having received an "earful from consumer groups who charged that the FDA is ignoring calls for labeling because of pressure from the food industry," according to the story. The food industry responded that "genetically-engineered labeling would result in lower farm prices, higher food prices and damaged consumer confidence in the safety of the food supply." Even worse, "labeling would needlessly stigmatize foods" not yet known to be harmful. But radical Luddite advocates of labeling argue that "consumers have a right to know" what they're eating.\nVery interesting. Leave aside questions about the safety of genetically-engineered foods. If genetically-engineered food producers thought genetic engineering was sexy, they'd crawl across broken glass to demand labeling. ("Eat Fluorescent Potato Chips and increase your Powerball winnings!") But even if consumers reject genetically-engineered goodies out of the crudest superstition, that is their right under the rules of free market economics. The important thing is that genetically-engineered food producers are demanding the right to break those rules and compel consumers to buy their products whether they want to or not.\nMedia uniformity is much tighter here than in Europe, so we haven't heard much about the controversy yet. U.S. groups critical of genetically-engineered foods can occasionally raise the money for a full-page ad in the New York Times, but they can't afford a regular and sustained high profile propaganda campaign. The food industry can. \n Time's cover story about genetically-engineered crops last summer was a good example. It looked like a news story, not an infomercial, but its coverage of opponents and critics of biotechnology was sparse, to put it kindly. Not what I consider balanced journalism, but who'd expect that from Time?\nAgain, I'm not expressing an opinion on the safety of genetically-engineered foods, about which I don't know enough to express an informed opinion. What interests me is the sight of corporations and industry groups gearing up to make sure that consumers find it as hard as possible to form an informed opinion, and deriding the mere effort to do so.