Now that the Supreme Court has declared that corporations are people, too (happy birthday, Citizens United!), Monsanto is apparently out to put a friendly, slightly weather-beaten, gently grizzled face on industrial agriculture. The above ad (the lefthand one) is part of a campaign  currently appearing in bus shelters in D.C., including just outside USDA headquarters, among other places. The link, Americasfarmers.com, forwards to a Monsanto page.

This guy looks an awful lot like Henry Fonda playing Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, which seems only fitting since Agribiz may be helping to create a 21st century Dust Bowl.

After decades of boasting about how fossil-fuel-intensive industrial agriculture has made it possible for far fewer farmers to produce way more food, Monsanto is now championing the power of farming to create jobs and preserve land. Does this attempt by a biotechnology behemoth to wrap itself in a populist plaid flannel shirt give you the warm and fuzzies, or just burn you up?

Marion NestleI checked in with Marion Nestle, NYU professor of nutrition and author of the good-food handbooks What to Eat and Food Politics, and most recently Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety (University of California Press, 2010), for her take on the campaign.