Man who MAFF tried to gag

9 December 1999



‘Man who MAFF tried to gag’

GEORGE MONBIOT, the controversial environmental essayist, claims to have been “gagged” by the ministry of agriculture in his weekly column in The Guardian.

Monbiot, an advocate for the small farmer and traditional farming methods, was a member of a “rural sounding board” convened by the ministry to canvass opinion for the rural white paper.

But he was asked to withdraw from that position by the agriculture minister Elliot Morley.

Demanding his resignation, the minister told Monbiot his views expressed in a published article “were utterly outrageous and unacceptable”.

Monbiot recounts he told readers in the article that the ministry of agriculture was “institutionally corrupt” and had been “captured” by agro-industrialists and chemicals companies.

• MAFF engineered the farm crisis, FWi, 23 September, 1999
• Rural issues hijacked by the Right, FWi, 10 June, 1999
  
• The Guardian 09/12/99 page 22