For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s Genetic Engineering page, Millions Against Monsanto page and our California News page.

Over the past few months, I’ve been writing about Proposition 37, the California initiative that would require foods made through genetic engineering to be labeled, a policy that is common sense in 61 other countries, but has been denied to Americans thanks to lobbying by Big Biotech. One of the most prominent food myths perpetuated by the likes of Monsanto is that we need genetic engineering “to feed the world.”

So I am thrilled that my good friend and colleague, Anna Lappé, is launching a new project called Food MythBusters, which takes direct aim at the most damaging talking points from Big Food and Big Ag that are designed to distract us from the grim realities of industrialized agriculture. The project is an impressive collaboration of numerous talented people and groups, including Free Range Studios, and Corporate Accountability International, among others.

The project’s main educational vehicle is an entertaining yet serious video in which Anna describes how American farmers get duped into relying on an unsustainable system of unhealthy inputs such as pesticides and herbicides.

The messages Food MythBusters aims to correct are brought to us not only by those companies with a vested interest in promoting pesticides and biotechnology, but also by a host of less obvious sources. Front groups are organizations with innocent and often objective-sounding names, but in reality are funded by corporate interests. More front groups are popping up all the time.

For example, what could be wrong with the U.S. Alliance for Farmers and Ranchers, the Alliance for Food and Farming, or the Alliance to Feed the Future? (Forming an “alliance” is apparently a popular strategy for front groups.) Each of these groups is funded by large and powerful food and agricultural interests.