Big Meat buys off academics

This has been well-known for a while, but there's new documentation out there.

Due to limited public funding for academic research, industry-funded studies on food and agriculture are common. And while researchers often strive to avoid bias and funding does not always impact research quality, evidence suggests industry-funded studies are more likely to produce results that reflect well on the funder.

In the paper, Viveca Morris and Dr. Jennifer Jacquet reveal a broader pattern of how the livestock industry, which has long had close affiliations with land-grant universities, has infiltrated universities to block climate scrutiny. The researchers trace the origins, funding, and political function of the “corporate capture of academic institutions”—especially focusing on the CLEAR Center, founded in 2018, and AgNext at Colorado State University, founded in 2020. As the authors argue, these leading academic centers wield their academic credibility to “maintain the livestock industry’s social license to operate.”

“They’re conducting industry-funded public relations and communications campaigns on climate change issues that benefit their agribusiness donors,” said Morris, the executive director of the Law, Ethics & Animals Program at Yale Law School. This effort extends far beyond industry-funded research to more actively shape policy, effectively acting like a lobbyist through frequent testimonies and meetings with policymakers, among other strategies.

Even if this is legal, “having a university—without transparency, without even telling the public that an industry donor is involved—acting as a PR arm of an industry group is impossible to justify with the university’s mission,” added Morris. - Civil Eats