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  • From: "jay gee" <jgj23 AT mindspring.com>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: On Marketing - On Topic - On GMOs
  • Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2002 14:12:46 +0000


Just for a moment, let's set aside the issues of whether
or not GMOs are good/environmentally safe things
and take a look at the subject of genetic modification
of foodstuffs, from the marketing point of view.

When the business and agricultural schools do case
studies of what went wrong with GMOs and their
introductions, ten or fifteen years from now (the subject
is too hot and touchy now at the affected corporate
entities for any rational studies to be conducted), the
root cause will be determined to be bad marketing
starting from the most basic, fundamental question.

GMO marketers have generally asked the question,
"Will farmers buy this new product?" when they should
have been asking, "Is this product absolutely as safe
as the products which are out there now?" and,
"Will end users risk their own health or the health
of their families and/or primary customer constituencies
if anything is later discovered to be problematic with
these products?"

Safe is a question of relativity in terms of corporate
quantifiability. Some corps see safe as no PR downside,
some see safe as no financial downside, some see safe
as no major liability downside. Corporate employees
generally see safe as not putting their job at risk.

People don't see safe the same way a corporation does
because individuals have limited life spans. Individuals
also have "common sense," something that no company
has ever manifested. Common sense often dictates
caution when uncertainty about safety is an issue.

Most people walk carefully along cliffs where there are
no safety rails, don't drive intoxicated, read the labels
on hazardous materials.

In the arena of agriculture, anthropologists tell us that
MAN has only been growing his own foodstuffs for the
last 10,000 years. Over that period of time, there is
an accumulated wisdom that tells people not to eat
unsafe home grown food, even if you are hungry.

Marketers are fools if they think that a few glossy
magazine ads or TV spots will overcome MANS
collective wisdom where questions of short or long
term safety are involved.

FARMERS are fools if they trust a corporation to
tell them that a product is safe, without demanding
a money back and lost revenues guarantee if the
new product grown is not accepted in the marketplace.
If the seed seller is not willing to do that, the logical
conclusion is that they do not stand behind their
product.

FARMERS must realize that they are marketers first,
not growers first -- and that their primary marketing
decision is what to grow, who to sell it to and why
are they the ready market, not what can be grown
that produces the highest yield per acre.

That is the essence of marketing. Think about it.


Jay Gee
not a farmer -- but interested in farming







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