WASHINGTON — The Trump administration hatched a plan to combat bad headlines about US food practices, including infamous “chlorinated chickens,” by taking “influential” British journalists on tours of American farmland.
The US Embassy in London published a notice this summer seeking a vendor to take five “skeptical” UK journalists on a five- to seven-day excursion of various farms and agricultural research institutions to show that US food is safe and nutritious.
The State Department will pay from $60,000 to $75,000 to an organization willing to stick its neck out in the name of US agriculture. The funding opportunity notice, reviewed by The Post, is titled: “Countering Negative and Poorly Informed Reporting about U.S. Agricultural Practices and Consumer Choice – Creating U.S. Jobs and Economic Opportunities in Agriculture.”
The kooky campaign is needed because the British have such a bad perception of food produced in the US that it could threaten a post-Brexit trade deal between the US and the UK.
“Unfortunately, there are many misconceptions in the UK about U.S. agricultural practices and standards,” the program notice says. “These have created strong public opposition to U.S. products and could jeopardize a FTA (Free Trade Agreement.)”
“Media stories about ‘industrial scale’ U.S. agriculture, usually focused on so-called ‘chlorinated chickens,’ are negative, misleading, and often inaccurate,” the notice continued.
The US Department of Agriculture even commissioned a poll with Gallup that found the Brits think of US food as a bad egg. In the last year, twice as many UK residents say they have heard negative news about food produced in the United States (46 percent) as opposed to positive news (24%), according to the federal notice. And just 1% of UK consumers would buy US meat over British meat.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson ruffled the feathers of the US this week when he told Vice President Pence that the UK was “not too keen on that chlorinated chicken,” referring to processes the US uses to treat chicken carcasses to clean them of bacteria, including salmonella.
But the practice was banned in the European Union in 1997.
The US wants to increase its agricultural exports to Britain once it exits the European Union and would no longer be wedded to the EU regulations that have limited US chicken and beef exports.
The Trump Administration views dispelling misconceptions about US food as a necessary step to securing a trade deal. And tours with foreign journalists are not uncommon, according to the Administration.
“U.S. Embassies around the world regularly engage journalists to explain and advocate for U.S. policy priorities, and set up U.S. tours to allow reporters to have direct access to subject matter experts,” according to a US Embassy spokesperson.
The spokesperson added: “We want the British public to understand that US agricultural products are safe and nutritious. British consumers are smart and deserve more options when choosing farm products.”
So far no vendor has signed up for the tour bid.
Woody Johnson, the US ambassador to the UK, urged Brits to embrace the US agricultural standards in an opinion piece he wrote for The Telegraph in March.
Johnson said the chlorine-washed chicken is the same treatment that some EU farmers use on their fruits and vegetables. He called it a “public safety no-brainer” to deal with “potentially lethal” bacteria such as salmonella.
“Inflammatory and misleading terms like ‘chlorinated chicken’ and ‘hormone beef’ are deployed to cast American farming in the worst possible light,” Johnson wrote in urging a new trade deal.
