Scripps Howard News Service, Joan Lowy
Published June 15, 2005
The produce industry is in high dudgeon over what they charge is a reckless attempt to vilify their vegetables, malign their melons, besmirch their berries and tarnish their taters.
The object of their ire is a five-minute Web video produced for the Organic Trade Association called "Store Wars." A spoof of the "Star Wars" movies, the video urges viewers to join the "organic rebellion" in the fight against "the dark side of the farm."
"It's outrageous," said Jennifer Tong of the United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Association. "It leads consumers to believe there may be a safety concern associated with conventional farmed products."
The video features fruit, vegetables and other foods decorated to resemble "Star Wars" characters, including Darth Tater, who's "now more chemical than vegetable."
"Alas, the market has been taken over by the dark side of the farm," Obi Wan Cannoli tells young Cuke Skywalker in the video. "An empire of pollution and pesticides has ruthlessly conquered the market, nearly wiping out our organic birthright with unsustainable, shortsighted practices like genetic engineering, irradiation and massive chemical pesticide use."
The video is one of the latest examples of viral marketing. The idea is that if you make a video available free on the Web that's sufficiently interesting or entertaining, people will send it to their friends, who in turn will send it to their friends, until it spreads like a virus.
Since its launch on May 10, more than 5.5 million visits have been recorded at the video's Web site,
www.storewars.org, according to Free Range Studios, which produced "Store Wars."
"We've never seen growth like this in an online movie before," said Tate Hausman, Free Range's strategy director. "We're getting 200,000 new people coming to the site every day.''
The firm is best known for its video "The Meatrix," which has been visited 7.5 million times since it was launched in November 2003 and recently won a Webby, the online version of an Oscar. The video - a takeoff on the movie "The Matrix" - is about the harmful effects of factory farming.
While "Store Wars" is a spoof and shouldn't be taken too literally, there is an abundance of evidence that synthetic fertilizers and pesticides used in conventional farming are harmful to the environment and human health, said Barbara Haumann, a spokeswoman for the Organic Trade Association.
"We're just letting consumers know that organic doesn't use these practices and so if they care about these things," they can buy organic products, Haumann said.
However, Produce Marketing Association vice president Kathy Means said it is "irresponsible to frighten consumers away from the very products they need to eat more of" to counter obesity.
"Organic produce and conventionally grown produce are equally safe to eat," Means said. "Products can't come to market with pesticide residues that will hurt anybody, including the most sensitive populations."
But Environmental Working Group vice president Richard Wiles said Department of Agriculture data shows that apples typically contain residues of 10 pesticides, strawberries six and peaches eight even after they are washed.
"Ten years ago the conventional-produce guys were saying the exact same thing they are saying today," Wiles said. "Since then, about a dozen pesticides have been banned or restricted as unsafe for infants and children at the levels they were being used."
On the Net:
www.ota.com
www.uffva.org
