Right of reply: Crop Care Federation of India cannot buy public opinion

CCFI's comparative picture of the volume of pesticide consumption in India vis-a-vis other countries ignores the conditions of use

This is in response to the full page ‘advertorial’ published in this paper on 29th July 2020 by a pesticide industry association called Crop Care Federation of India (CCFI). The advertorial space was used for a scurrilous attack on activists and researchers and to spread misinformation.

CCFI in this case put out a screaming headline: “Beware of Foreign Funded Environmental NGOs — They are paid to malign Indian agriculture”. The headline itself is wrong as the examples cited don’t consist of only (environmental) NGOs, or only foreign-funded organisations. It did not have a single case of those paid to malign