Search

"It's not just a problem of the farmworkers in Immokalee. It's not just a problem for immigrant workers in Florida," say representatives of Coalition of Immokalee Workers, "The problems in the agriculture industry are problems for all of American society."

In the '70s and '80s, the banana companies Dole, Del Monte and Chiquita used a carcinogenic pesticide, Nemagon, to protect their crops in Nicaragua. Today, the men and women who worked on those plantations suffer from incurable illnesses. Their children are deformed. The companies feign innocence.

In Immokalee, Florida, the situation is dire. South Florida is the nation's leading producer of fresh tomatoes. Taco Bell is a major purchaser of Florida tomatoes. Their enormous purchasing power gives them a unique opportunity to intervene on behalf of farm workers who subsidize corporate profits with sweatshop tomatoes.

SAN FRANCISCO and NEW YORK -- CorpWatch has learned that after a year long campaign by environmentalists, human rights groups, labor unions and other non-governmental organizations a leading UN agency abandoned its perilous partnership with a group of transnational corporations whose tarnished human rights, environmental and development records threatened to rub off on the world body.

In the last two years, at least two dozen leading nutrition scientists and experts have started working for large food companies, either as consultants or as members of health advisory boards. Most do not directly promote products, though Dr. Arthur Agatston, a practicing cardiologist and author of "The South Beach Diet," has a licensing deal with Kraft Foods to sell a line of South Beach foods, which are appearing on supermarket shelves this month.

Nonprofit's Tactics, Funding Sources Spark Controversy

In 1990, McDonald's Corporation sued two members of London Greenpeace
for
"libeling" the company. Why? They were handing out "What's Wrong
With
McDonald's? Everything They Don't Want You to Know" leaflets. The
leaflet
exposed the corporation's disreputable business practices,
including the
exploitation of our children through advertising, its
anti-union agenda, and
its promotion of an unhealthy diet.

McDonald's Corporation hired
expensive, high-powered lawyers to quash
the McLibel 2 in court. David

Unlike artificial sweeteners, Senomyx's chemical compounds will not be listed separately on ingredient labels. Instead, they will be lumped into a broad category - "artificial flavors" - already found on most packaged food labels.

Global food companies are aggravating poverty in developing countries by dominating markets, buying up seed firms and forcing down prices for staple goods including tea, coffee, milk, bananas and wheat, according to a report to be launched today.

A US federal court in New York has dismissed a legal action brought by Vietnamese plaintiffs over the use of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. The plaintiffs had sought compensation from the firms that manufactured the chemical, which allegedly caused birth defects, miscarriages and cancer.

NEW YORK -- CorpWatch warned today that the newly formed Business Action for Sustainable Development (BASD), an industry grouping organized to influence the Earth Summit in 2002 will be scrutinized and monitored by NGOs concerned with excessive corporate influence at the UN.

The food industry is working with politicians across the United States to rewrite laws in order to shield themselves from lawsuits based on obesity and related health problems.

Coca-Cola Co., the world's largest soft-drink maker, is facing boycotts at U.S. college campuses including New York University by students who allege the company has ignored the murder of labor organizers at bottling plants in Colombia.