‘Farm Babe’ versus ‘Food Babe’ | The Express Tribune

IOWA:

Michelle Miller stands in a field of corn, stalks stretching above her perfectly styled hair, holding a tiny microphone and addressing an audience online. She was farming genetically-modified corn in Iowa in 2017, she says, when a tornado hit.

Now a social media influencer who goes by the name the “Farm Babe,” Miller says the wind knocked her corn flat on the ground. But in a feat of botanical fortitude, the plants bounced back. “So when you ask farmers: why are they growing these GMO seeds?” she says in the video, “it’s because the genetics hold up.”

Miller has starred in hundreds of videos, often set in fields and on farms, since she began her influencing career. She aims to debunk what she sees as misperceptions around farming perpetuated by another universe of influencers, many of whom are now closely aligned with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy, Jr, and his Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, campaign.

But unlike Miller’s GMO corn, arguments in favor of the status quo in US food and agriculture are increasingly falling flat, especially on social media. Among the most prominent of those MAHA influencers is Vani Hari, who blogs as “The Food Babe” — Miller says her own name is a self-conscious spin-off.

Hari has gained millions of followers by railing against processed food, GMOs, pesticides and other mainstays of the US food system.

Although Miller partners with powerful interests in the food and agriculture industry with huge marketing budgets, her message is not gaining as much traction as Hari’s. Her Instagram account, for example, had just over 43,000 followers in early August, to Hari’s 2.3 million.

The bloggers’ uneven rivalry speaks to the ascendance of a movement that has put conventional food and farming in its crosshairs, and Big Agriculture’s struggle to respond. Hari and Miller, both in their 40s, emerged as food commentators in the 2010s amid a boom in social media influencing, when a single post going viral could help rocket its author to fame and fortune.

Their rise also coincided with growing national attention on the relationship between food, obesity and chronic illness, with then-First Lady Michelle Obama spearheading new regulations on school nutrition and promoting vegetable gardening and exercise through her “Let’s Move!” campaign.

Hari grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, where she said she was largely raised on ultra-processed foods, to which she attributes later chronic health conditions, from eczema to endometriosis. An appendectomy in 2002 launched her on a quest to understand the source of her health issues.

She pored over books on nutrition at the library, from which she concluded that her diet was at the root of her diseases, and those of many other Americans. “I wanted to investigate: what was it about these foods that made me feel so bad?” Hari said.

Hari began writing a blog in 2011 as The Food Babe, a name suggested by her husband, with the aim of educating her friends and family. The blog reached well beyond her immediate circle and led to book deals and the creation of Truvani, a line of supplements now sold at Target and Walmart.

More recently, she has become a sort of mascot of the MAHA movement, though she is a registered Democrat, according to public voter registration records.

At a press conference in April, at which Kennedy announced the administration’s intention to phase out synthetic food dyes, Hari was an opening act, appearing in a bejewelled white suit before a room of press and MAHA supporters.

Miller wanted her own pulpit after she began noticing Hari’s content in 2014. A commercial farmer of soybeans, corn and livestock in Iowa at the time, Miller said she posted a comment on Hari’s Facebook page taking issue with her claims about the toxicity of GMO crops.

After that, Miller said, she was blocked. So, she launched a rival blog. “I really took it upon myself to be a myth buster for the industry,” she said. Hari did not respond to questions about blocking Miller or others who make critical comments. Hari has published books blasting corruption in the food industry as well as her own cookbooks, and sells subscriptions to her blog. The supplements, however, are her main business, Hari said. She declined to disclose the company’s value.

Miller, who said she is not registered with either political party, travels about 300 days a year, doing paid speaking engagements, farm visits and branded partnerships with companies like Tyson Foods, Domino’s Pizza and the California Beef Council.

She also writes a column for an agriculture industry trade publication. She declined to say exactly how much she earns, but her published fee for speeches ranges from $2,500 to $15,000.

Mariah Wellman, a professor of advertising and public relations at Michigan State University who focuses on social media and wellness, said both women likely earn in the high six figures for their work. But they speak to different audiences.

And the constraints of traditional public relations may hinder pro-agriculture messaging, while the MAHA crowd’s comfort with social media helps propel its narrative. “When you think about large brands and large agricultural companies, they are headed by a demographic that’s not super comfortable with influencer culture,” said Wellman.

She said that such companies often find it hard to keep up with fast-moving social media trends as they like to vet their partnerships carefully.

Miller, for her part, is sometimes frustrated by the challenges of working with an industry that is less nimble on social media, noting that it skews older and male, and saying it is often “preaching to the choir.” But she sees it as part of her mission to help agriculture better communicate about itself.

Hari has gained traction as public skepticism of US public health institutions grew during the Covid-19 crisis. And her profile exploded when Kennedy, a long-time vaccine sceptic and environmental lawyer who was involved in suing companies like Bayer Monsanto over its pesticides, joined President Donald Trump’s administration.