How a US-Based PR Firm Is Profiling Activists, Scientists Opposing Pesticides and GMO

Technology lawyer and policy adviser Pranesh Prakash told us that India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 (DPDPA) does not apply to personal data that is “made or caused to be made” publicly available by the individuals whose data is processed.

On reviewing excerpts from a couple of profiles, he found that personal data was indeed being processed, as data collection itself qualifies as processing, and that much of the collected personal data was not made available by the person who was profiled, and thus the DPDPA applied to it.

He added that there was a “research purposes” exception, but that it does not apply if the data is being used to make any decision specific to any of the activists whose personal data has been collected.

“If the ‘research’ exception does not apply, then the processing of such personal data would not be lawful,” Prakash explains, except if “the personal data is processed with her consent.”

Another profile, of ecologist and seed conservator Debal Deb, states that he “has never worked for a corporate or at a ‘steady’ job”. It mentions that Deb is an “advocacy colleague” of Shiva. It also includes his residential address, personal email address, phone number and details of association with farming organisations in India.

“I don’t know what is up their sleeves,” says Deb, who also was not surprised. He said he has faced much more frightening actions against his work that threatened the safety of his mother and colleagues.

In a written statement, Byrne wrote that the private, community-edited wiki platform that provides information on topics and stakeholders referenced in our monitoring reports includes only “publicly available and referenced information”, asserting that, “Any contact or other information which may appear on the wiki is from public records and is used publicly by the source as part of their business or advocacy.”

‘Unacceptable and shocking’

While Shiva and Deb are accustomed this kind of pressure by opposition actors, there are other scientists who appear on v-Fluence’s repository, apparently solely because they signed a letter in 2013, to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, highlighting risks of genetically modified organisms (GMO) on food and farming systems in India.

A profile of Aninhalli Vasavi, a social anthropologist and independent researcher, briefly mentions her areas of advocacy and highlights that she was one of the 251 scientists who signed the 2013 letter. Following the recommendations of a Supreme Court-appointed expert committee, the signatories urged the government to halt GMO trials until regulatory gaps are addressed.

“That there is an organisational effort, to challenge criticisms against the pesticide industry, or the promotion of GMOs is both unacceptable and shocking,” says Vasavi.

Vasavi isn’t intimidated by it, but she finds the sharing of such information between companies to be concerning. She believes it could pose a threat to the participation of researchers like her in public discourse and raised apprehensions about how her personal data could be used.

Ecologist Sultan Ahmed Ismail is another scientist who signed the 2013 letter and is on the list of the Indians profiled by the firm. Ismail, who has worked with the Union government’s Department of Science and Technology, believes that while the company is entitled to its views, “critically profiling” scientists is wrong and “not a healthy trend”, and is detrimental to the development of scientific temper in a democracy.

“It’s business. So, they would try to silence people who are not in favour of them by causing a lot of disturbances, and creating problems for their work,” he adds.

The website also shows profiles of two Indian environmental organisations – PAN India, and Thanal, a Kerala-based non-profit association that promotes organic farming and biodiversity conservation.

Notably, PAN India – along with an association of Yavatmal victims, and other organisations – filed a complaint with the OECD against Syngenta in 2017, seeking compensation for affected farmers.

For Narasimha Reddy Donthi, an independent policy analyst and consultant with PAN India, monitoring of this kind by pesticide companies is not surprising. However, amidst a scarcity of funds and the general hostility towards civil society organisations in India, he notes that profiling can further restrict the scope of their work.

“We try to be more careful and not allow any room where they can use the long arm of the government to suppress our work or their voices. Even if they are profiling, it can be threatening. We try to be more objective, within the ethical and legal framework, so that our strength is not eroded by this profiling,” Donthi adds.

These concerns are not unfounded given that these profiles are made accessible to individuals who influence policy making and have access to public representatives in India.

Indian connections to v-Fluence and Byrne

v-Fluence’s private social network Bonus Eventus is accessible to over 1,000 members, based on invite, and includes executives associated with global agrochemical companies, lobbyists and government members. v-Fluence received funding support from the USAID for Bonus Eventus via the International Food Policy Research Institute. The sub-contracts are aimed at countering criticism of “modern agriculture approaches” in Asia and Africa, according to public records obtained by Lighthouse Reports.

In 2019, v-Fluence also arranged a stakeholder engagement training programme for members of CropLife India, an international association of agrochemical companies including Bayer and Syngenta among others. In the same year, CropLife India organised multiple events that were attended by several government officials and industry stakeholders.

Three years later, at the ‘India Chem 2021’ event, organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) in partnership with two government ministries, Byrne spoke as the President of v-Fluence, calling for “science-based regulatory policies” to tackle “spread of misinformation about banning a category of agrochemicals”. Byrne’s presentation highlighted how organisations like European Green Advocacy, Greenpeace and Pesticide Action Network posed challenges for India’s agrochemical industry, calling stakeholders to access “intelligence, stakeholder research”, and other resources on its Bonus Eventus network.

Among the eight Indians who have access to the Bonus Eventus portal is Raghavan Sampathkumar, the Executive Director of the Federation of Seed Industry of India (FSII). Sampathkumar, an agribusiness professional, has been working in the fields of GM crops, animal protein and agricultural trade while also engaging in policy advocacy and public relations outreach for agriculture enterprises. The FSII has ties to agro-industry companies and is involved in a project with the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare for deploying technologies to agro-ecological zones allotted for cotton production. We have reached out to Sampathkumar for his comments and will update the story as soon as we receive a response.

Another member is Anand Ranganathan, the consulting editor of the Indian right-wing magazine Swarajya. Ranganathan, who is a regular political commentator, has also worked with the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) as staff research scientist. The ICGEB partners with the Department of Biotechnology and the Department of Science and Technology, under the Union Ministry of Science and Technology, for supporting biotech research and development.

Ranganathan told Lighthouse Reports and The Wire that this was the first he was hearing of this network and that he has never been associated with it, or Byrne, who runs the network.

“Nor have I ever used their services, whatever they may be,” Ranganathan said in an email statement. He said that his name may have been included in the network without his “consent or knowledge” when he worked at the ICGEB 10 years ago. He also added that he had never knowingly received or opened any newsletters or emails from Bonus Eventus or v-Fluence.

“A pro-GMO PR firm tracked my pro-GMO views through my articles that I had written 10 years ago and included me in their network. I have never knowingly been part of any such organisation or effort, coordinated or otherwise. As someone who has always taken a firm stand against pesticide overuse and poisoning in Punjab that has led to plying of cancer trains, or against Union Carbide on the Bhopal genocide, I can never be part of unethical practices to undermine efforts, by activists or scientists or organisations that work towards human betterment and public good,” he added.

Ranganathan says that although he is pro-GMO, along with 107 Nobel laureates who are also pro-GMO, it doesn’t mean that he supports or endorses “any unethical and malicious practices or espionage against those who are anti-GMO”, he wrote.

“…absolutely not and quite the opposite. I wholeheartedly condemn any such malpractice. I have always wished for a healthy debate on GMO,” he wrote.

Other members include researchers and policy advisors from research institutes in India and agrochemical companies.

‘No liability’

The Yavatmal tragedy reignited conversation around regulating the sale of pesticides. The Maharashtra government constituted a special investigative team (SIT) to look into the case. They recommended immediate prohibition on the use of “highly hazardous” Monocrotophos, which was available at a cheap price and frequently sold to the affected farmers.

The state government then temporarily prohibited the sale, distribution or use of insecticides using formulations including Monocrotophos, and Diafenthiuron, a key ingredient in Syngenta’s ‘Polo’, alleged to have caused poisonings in several cases.

An examination of official police records by PAN India and others who filed the Swiss OECD complaint noted that at least 51 agricultural workers who used Polo, experienced adverse health impacts exhibiting breathing issues, gastrointestinal effects, blurred vision, temporary loss or reduction of eyesight and neurological symptoms among several other problems. However, the SIT report only mentions Monocrotophos and not Polo.

“We want to fix liability for pesticide poisoning on the company. In India, we don’t have a liability principle in-built into our pesticide regulation,” says Donthi of the Pesticide Action Network. He calls for periodic biosafety reviews – assessing the safe use of crop protection chemicals even after their registration.

Meanwhile, Syngenta Group CEO Jeff Rowe has called for faster regulatory approvals in India and plans to deploy 40 new crop protection products in the next two or three years. The group is also partnering with various government departments in several ways.

For instance, both Syngenta Foundation India and Syngenta India Pvt Ltd signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), India’s top scientific organisation for agricultural research, in July this year, to promote climate-resilient agriculture and training programmes. The move, along with ICAR’s MoUs with other corporates including Bayer, has resulted in experts raising concerns regarding the privatisation of Indian agriculture given the obvious conflicts of interest at work.

On September 2, visiting India for the first time, Rowe launched a new CSR initiative “I RISE” (Inculcating Rural India Skill Enhancement), that aims to train one lakh youth in rural India for jobs in agriculture. According to a media company that covers news pertaining to chemicals and petrochemicals, Rowe also “thanked” Syngenta’s “partners”, including state agricultural universities and Krishi Vigyan Kendras – which are local agricultural science centres – for their “invaluable support”.

‘Misleading and manufactured falsehoods’: v-Fluence

In response to questions from Lighthouse Reports regarding the profiling of scientists and activists, v-Fluence founder Byrne said that the “claims and questions you have posed are based on grossly misleading representations, factual errors regarding our work and clients, and manufactured falsehoods”. In an emailed statement, Byrne also denied the allegations in the lawsuit, which he referred to as “manufactured and false”.

“Our scope of work that you are questioning is limited to monitoring, research, and trends reporting on global activities and trends for plant breeding and crop protection issues,” he wrote.

Public contracting documents obtained by Lighthouse Reports and shared with The Wire, show that v-Fluence received just over $400,000 as part of a contract with agricultural research organisation IFPRI, which manages USAID’s program to introduce GM crops in some African and Asian countries. The contracts, which operated between 2013 and 2019, were funded by USAID and included “enhanced monitoring” of  stakeholders who were critical of “modern agriculture approaches”. Byrne denies having held government contracts now or in the past, but said that the US government was a “funder of other organisations with whom we work”.

Donthi characterised the USAID-backed efforts of a private firm like v-Fluence to profile individuals from a foreign country as an “overreach”. Vasavi said, “It’s troubling to see that companies would go to this extent to deflect and to avoid criticisms”.

She added, “I think it is here that the state needs to play a role to protect people like us. And if the state does not protect us, then it’s all the more alarming for us.”

Sarasvati Thuppadolla is a Reporting Fellow at Lighthouse Reports.

Margot Gibbs and Elena DeBre are investigative reporters at Lighthouse Reports.

This story, published by The Wire, is an investigation led by and in partnership with investigative newsroom Lighthouse Reports, and other international partners: The Guardian, Le Monde, The New Lede, Africa Uncensored, The New Humanitarian, ABC News.