Over the past few years, outcries from food activists have changed many Americans' eating habits: Criticism of widespread pesticide use led many consumers to organic foods, and early warnings prompted shoppers to shun irradiated and genetically altered food.

But now angry agribusiness groups are fighting back. Major players, among them the American Farm Bureau Federation, have muscled 'agricultural disparagement' laws through state legislatures. The statutes make it illegal to suggest that a particular food is unsafe without a 'sound scientific basis' for the claim, reports Paul Rauber in Sierra (Nov./Dec. 1995). These so-called banana bills are on the books in Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Texas, and are under consideration in California, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Washington.

Banana bill backers believe the laws will protect agricultural producers from losses like those following the Alar scare in 1989, when the TV magazine show 60 Minutes publicized a Natural Resources Defense Council report charging that the chemical, which enhances the appearance of apples, causes cancer. Overnight, tons of apples, applesauce, and apple juice became grocery shelf untouchables, and Washington apple growers lost $130 million, according to the Washington State Farm Bureau.

Florida proponents of banana bills point to the fate of Vindicator Inc., a Florida firm that opened the nation's first food irradiation facility and now is struggling to survive. Vindicator blamed activists' anti-irradiation publicity for its woes, and fearful farmers in the agribusiness-rich state teamed up to pass a banana bill with clout: Those found guilty of 'agricultural disparagement' have to pay three times the estimated dollar amount of damage done to the ag interest plaintiffs.

Banana bill foes say the laws simply serve to stifle those who speak out against risky food -- produce with 'acceptable' levels of pesticides, genetically altered tomatoes, milk from cows injected with the growth hormone rbST (recombinant bovine somatotropin), which boosts milk production. Even when a lawsuit against a food safety group fails, legal fees can bankrupt the group. In Safe Food News (Summer 1994), David Bederman, an ACLU attorney challenging Georgia's banana bill, predicts the laws will encourage 'state-sanctioned SLAPP suits,' new versions of the strategic lawsuits against public participation that corporations have been filing or threatening to file against critical groups since the mid-'80s.