The Omaha based ConAgra Foundation has begun a three-year national public awareness campaign called "Home Food Safety … It's in Your Hands™". The goal is "to raise consumer awareness that home food safety is a serious problem and provide solutions so Americans can easily and safely handle food in their own kitchens."

ConAgra Foundation is "the philanthropic arm of ConAgra, which works to improve the quality of life in communities around the world." ConAgra itself is, in fact, a US based agri-food international conglomerate.

Last year ConAgra, together with Monsanto/Cargill and Novartis/ADM, was identified in a University of Missouri study on behalf of the National Farmers Union in America as an "agribusiness goliath" - one of the big alliances, formed through links such as joint ventures, which are positioning themselves to dominate world food production at the expense of both farmers and consumers.

ConAgra have strong links with the biotechnology industry and have recently announced a tie up with Monsanto for the marketing of GM corn varieties at a time when other major US merchants and food processors are dropping these.

You may wish to contact ConAgra to let them know that their pro-active support of GM technology in the food chain does not fit in well with their national food safety awareness campaign launched last week (more details below).

Is this in fact an effort to boost the food safety image of ConAgra at a time when US campaigns against GM foods are rapidly gaining momentum and causing consternation in the US agri-food sector?

Handling GM foods carefully in the kitchen will not remove components derived from viruses and bacteria which are often randomly embedded in the genome of every cell as an integral part of the genetic 'engineering' process.

You can let ConAgra know your views on these subjects by visiting their website or using one of the phone numbers listed at on their site.

Alternatively or additionally you can contact the American Dietetic Association, with whom ConAgra have alarmingly teamed up for the purposes of this exercise, or email or phone 800/877-1600, ext. 4769, 4822 or 4894.

It is of course extremely worrying that allies of the biotechnology industry should also be forming further alliances with those bodies that give advice to US citizens on "healthy eating".

Although ConAgra's latest activities may be of interest primarily to US citizens, its influence and penetration in agriculture and the food chain is global.

ConAgra markets more than 6 billion packages of food products every year (equivalent to about 16 million consumer purchases every day, or 11,000 purchases per minute). ConAgra also supply ingredients to other food manufacturer's including leading international brewers Budweiser, Foster's, and Carlsberg.

A list of ConAgra food products (including their "Healthy Choice" brand) is provided on their site.

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