Monsanto and the Carnival of Corn

Leveraging Preexisting Media Infrastructure to Engage Corporations

Monsanto and the Carnival of Corn was largely a staged leveraging of media in which the participants set the stage themselves. Students and Activists created a fake press release impersonating Monsanto stating that the government of Mexico had approved genetically modified seeds for sale in the country. This immediately prompted a public outcry. The clever part of this campaign was that by releasing a fake press release as Monsanto, these activists forced Monsanto, at least peripherally to engage in the conversation and confront topics that they would normally patently ignore. Finally, for the coup de grâce in the whole situation, they once again impersonated Monsanto in yet another press release revealing their own actions as a hoax from and telling the story from their point of view while crediting themselves (Sin Maíz No Hay Vida, “Without Corn There is No Life”) with the entire production.

Lastly, the activists held a carnival that celebrated the diversity of free nature of the Mexico and condemned Monsanto’s “monopoly on life”.

I personally find this project very compelling because it required minimal investment of manpower for the return, just creative use of existing channels . Another reason this is interesting is it shows just how predictable responses from mega-corporations can be in terms of public relations. This group managed to one-up Monsanto not once but three times, something that is quite an achievement considering the imposing presence of that Monsanto exudes. Finally, I also found this engaging because I was reading a collection of short stories which dealt with different outcomes of agribusiness and global super corporations, Paolo Bacigalupi’s Pump Six and Other Stories (particularly “The Calorie Man”).

I think this strategy could be used our Brave New Maine campaign to generate interest, we would just need to find the right place to tip the scales.