Corporations control essential resources like our food and water — and the agencies and elected officials charged with keeping us safe. Giant corporations like Smithfield, Walmart, Koch Industries, Monsanto and ExxonMobil hold unfair power. 

With their biggest weapon — huge sums of money — they buy politicians and policies. They pay to manipulate the debate over every issue that affects our health and our communities, and to circumvent real change by offering confusing alternatives.

Corporate Politics

Corporations can spend unlimited money to buy elections. And they do it in complete secrecy. Thanks to rulings like Citizens United, corporate money has flooded our political system. In the last decade, the agricultural and biotech industries spent more than half a billion dollars in campaign contributions and lobbying. 

Corporate Policy

Fossil fuel corporations and other polluters, like the Koch Brothers, have built a huge network of public relations shills and mouthpieces. They promote pro-industry, anti-climate policies by employing so-called experts to undermine science. Likewise, through corporate associations and front groups, they promote fracking and knock clean energy solutions. Their money even corrupts our colleges and universities — compromising the integrity of the education new adults are earning.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is the most insidious industry-funded front group. Through ALEC, giant polluters develop a template of legislation — implemented state by state — meant to boost corporate profit at the expense of human health and safety. ALEC even wants to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency and restrict voting. They want to keep pro-corporate politicians in office to push pro-corporate policies. Whether it’s promoting corporate water takeovers, preventing people from knowing where their food comes from, or stopping local initiatives to ban fracking, ALEC steers decision-makers to bad policies.

Fighting Corporate Control

Food & Water Watch fights to change the balance of power. We protect our food, water, and climate from the stranglehold of corporate influence. We know that while corporations have unlimited money, it’s still possible for people to join together to resist their profit-driven agenda. That’s why we push for the bold solutions the scientific community knows are best to thwart climate disasters — banning factory farms, banning fracking, and keeping water public and affordable.

Food & Water Watch has proven that when people mobilize around workable strategies, we can beat the influence of corporate money. We can win referendums and hold public agencies accountable legally. By raising our voices together, we can create real change.