Food & Water Watch

Background

Food and Water Watch is a radical environmental group known for unscientific scare campaigns. Claiming it merely wants to “protect our food, water, and climate,” in practice the group opposes affordable energy sources, crop biotechnology, and wants to ban modern livestock farms. The result of Food & Water Watch’s agenda would be higher utility bills and grocery bills for families across the country. 

Funding

While FWW claims to have a grassroots base, tax records reveal that much of its funding comes from just a handful of sources. 

Much of FWW’s funding comes from “dark money” funds. Typically, these funds, called “donor-advised funds” act as middlemen for wealthy individuals. 

Dark money funding of FWW includes:

• The Columbus Foundation ($47.3 million)
• Greater Kansas City Community Foundation ($41.3 million)
• Silicon Valley Community Foundation ($40.2 million)
• Santa Barbara Foundation ($5.8 million)

FWW also is funded by the Schmidt Family Foundation, funded by billionaire former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, which has given more than $6 million. 

In 2024, $9.8 million of FWW’s funding–more than half of its budget–came from just three sources: Greater Kansas City Community Foundation, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and the Schmidt Family Foundation.

In 2023, $15.5 million of FWW’s funding came from just five sources: The Columbus Foundation, New Tamarind Foundation, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, Santa Barbara Foundation, and the Schmidt Family Foundation. 

Overall, tax records indicate FWW has received more than $160 million from activist foundations, dark money groups, and other organizations. 

Biased, Anti-Science

Food and Watch Watch has accused others of “attacking science”–but the phrase would be more accurately applied to FWW’s own campaigns. 

The website Media Bias Fact Check gives Food & Water Watch a “mixed” rating for its factual reporting, due to FWW “not always adhering to the consensus of science and the use of poor sourcing techniques.”

Food & Water Watch has claimed that genetically improved crops place “human and environmental health at risk”–putting the group at odds with scientific organizations around the globe. 

The National Academy of Sciences, British Royal Society, American Medical Association, and American Association for the Advancement of Science have all found that genetically improved crops are as safe as other foods.

This scaremongering has real–and harmful–consequences. Some genetic improvements to crops help them withstand drought or grow more pelntifully–reducing food costs. Other advancements, such as golden rice, impart important nutrients such as Vitamin A to help fight malnutrition in vulnerable populations around the world. 

FWW also wants to prohibit oil and natural gas development–putting at risk hundreds of thousands of jobs in the US, as well as our country’s energy independence. FWW claims that oil and gas extraction via fracking could be a threat to groundwater–a claim that was debunked by the Obama Administration’s EPA, which issued a report finding: “Hydraulic fracturing operations are unlikely to generate sufficient pressure to drive fluids into shallow drinking water zones.”