“You’ve probably heard of the ‘Dirty Dozen’ – a list of produce items identified by the Environmental Working Group that reportedly contain too many pesticide residues. I thought you might like to know about this webinar that provides perspective on pesticide residues,” said an email sent by Elizabeth Pivonka, a registered dietitian who serves as the president and CEO for the Produce for Better Health Foundation.

“You’ve probably heard of the ‘Dirty Dozen’ – a list of produce items identified by the Environmental Working Group that reportedly contain too many pesticide residues. I thought you might like to know about this webinar that provides perspective on pesticide residues,” said an email sent by Elizabeth Pivonka, a registered dietitian who serves as the president and CEO for the Produce for Better Health Foundation.

She sent the email to a few employees of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), who then forwarded it on to employees of state health departments. The webinar, which claimed to expose the “real” danger of the “Dirty Dozen” (“scaring consumers away from eating fresh fruits and vegetables” and having a “negative impact on public health at a time when we are facing an obesity epidemic”), was put on by the Alliance for Food and Farming – a self-described non-profit organization made up of agricultural groups seeking to “educate and inform consumers and the media on issues of food safety and farming.”

Sounds benign, right? In fact, it sounds downright helpful. Fortunately, after the CDC employees failed to question the webinar, an employee of the New York State Department of Health shot the webinar invitation out to a listserv asking, “Is this an industry group promoting conventional farming?” One look at the Alliance’s Web site is enough to answer that with a qualified yes! The front page of the site touts in large font that “U.S. farmers produce the safest, most abundant food supply in the world” – that’s industry codespeak for “please don’t question us – just buy and eat the food we give you no matter how we choose to produce it.” But who does the alliance represent? The Web site does not say, and when asked, the organization refuses to divulge its members – a common tactic of industry front groups.

In fact, the Alliance for Food and Farming represents a number of mostly California-based farm and pesticide groups including the California Strawberry Commission, the California Farm Bureau Federation, the California Association of Pest Control Advisers, Western Growers, Sunkist Growers, the Produce Marketing Association, the California Tomato Farmers, and the California Table Grape Commission.