They said they wanted to help farmers. They really wanted to hurt environmentalists.

Florida in Five: Five stories to read from the past week in Florida politics.

Photo credit: USDA Forest Service

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Welcome to another installment of Florida in Five: Five* stories you need to read from the past week in Florida politics.

We posted a story last week about a subtle provision slipped inside a new “farm bill” in the Florida Legislature that would empower the sugar industry to pursue defamation claims against Everglades activists, news media, and anyone else who criticizes companies like U.S. Sugar Corp. and Florida Crystals Corp.

The measure — found near the back of Senate Bill 290 and House Bill 433 — would expand a state law that allows agricultural companies to sue people who “disparage” perishable food products like fruits and vegetables. Commonly known as a “food libel” or “veggie libel” law, it essentially lowers the legal bar that an agribusiness must clear when suing someone for slandering its food, making the suit much easier to win than a traditional defamation claim.

As part of the research for that piece, I wanted to learn more about the origins of Florida’s food libel law, which was passed in 1994, a few years after a 60 Minutes investigation into a growth chemical used by the commercial apple industry had helped trigger a nationwide slump in apple sales.

So I pulled some records from the State Archives of Florida — and they turned up some very interesting details about who and what was really behind the bill.

The archive records show, for instance, that Florida’s food libel law was literally written by farm industry lobbyists. The “bill file” includes a draft of the original legislation that had been faxed over to the staff director of the Senate Agriculture Committee by a lobbyist for the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association.

The staffer than shared the draft with someone else — with a Post-it attached containing a handwritten note that the proposal would be filed by Sen. Toni Jennings, a Republican from Orlando. (Jennings, who ultimately sponsored it as Senate Bill 1072, would later become president of the Florida Senate and serve for a time as lieutenant governor under Jeb Bush.)

But that’s just the start of what the archives revealed. The three-decade-old documents also showed that two of the country’s biggest pesticide corporations were helping coordinate the food libel lobbying campaign, which extended across much of the country.

And their motivations were far more sinister than supporters ever let on in public.

If you go back through news clips from 1994, you’ll find that boosters of the food libel bill repeatedly framed it as a defensive measure — a way to “protect” Florida’s iconic citrus industry and other vulnerable farmers who could be financially ruined by bad-faith actors spreading misinformation about fast-spoiling fruits and vegetables.

“We’ve got to protect our food industry,” then-state Rep. Mark Foley, a Republican from West Palm Beach (remember him?), said at the time, according to a March 23, 1994, story by the Associated Press. “Stand behind your farmers.”

“This is going to allow them to have the opportunity to fight back when somebody intentionally and willfully spreads lies,” Jennings added, per that same AP story.

And when opponents warned that the law could be used to chill speech and stifle debates about issues like food safety and nutrition — a concern that free-speech advocates still have today — supporters insisted that they were not trying to silence anyone.

“We in no way intend to infringe on the First Amendment,” said Butch Calhoun, a lobbyist for the Florid Fruit & Vegetable Association, according to a March 19, 1994, story in the Ocala Star-Banner. (Yes, that’s the same lobbyist who faxed the draft of the bill to the Senate.)

But the records from the state archives include a pair of memos written by executives at major agricultural chemical companies that articulated the true motivation behind these food libel laws. The memos were also faxed to legislative staffers by the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association, which is presumably how they ended up in the bill file.

One of those memos was written in March 1992 by a lawyer at the Monsanto Co. — the company best known as the manufacturer of Roundup, the weed-killing herbicide that has since spawned billions of dollars in payouts related to claims that the product causes cancer.

The Monsanto lawyer, who was analyzing a similar food libel law that had just passed in Louisiana, wrote that the legislation would give companies leverage over their critics by enabling them to cite a specific cause of action in state law when trying to pressure environmental groups into canceling advocacy campaigns or news outlets into spiking unflattering stories.

“I have found it much more effective when negotiating or requesting the cessation of certain activities when a specific statutory provision is available for reference,” the Monsanto lawyer wrote.

The Monsanto lawyer also emphasized the importance of allowing agricultural companies to extract “punitive damages” from their critics, rather than only the recovery of purely economic damages like compensation for lost sales. That, he wrote, would add an element of unpredictably to the potential court award someone could face if they were ultimately to found to have defamed a company’s food.

“By including a punitive damages provision, a disseminator will not be able to determine in advance whether the results it seeks are ‘worth the price,’” the Monsanto lawyer wrote.

Florida’s food libel law explicitly authorizes punitive damages.

(It would perhaps be relevant to note right here that Monsanto is now owned by German industrial giant Bayer, which is currently lobbying state lawmakers — including in Florida — to pass laws that would limit legal exposure to Roundup claims.)

The second memo came from a lobbyist for DowElanco, a pesticide company created by a joint venture between industrial firm Dow Chemical Co. and drugmaker Eli Lily Co.. It’s known today as Corteva Agriscience.

In that memo — written in September 1993, just a few months before the Florida legislation was filed — the DowElanco lobbyist noted that the industry had successfully lobbied for food libel laws in Louisiana, Idaho, Alabama and Georgia, and was now working on other southern states.

But whereas industry lobbyists and allied lawmakers publicly framed the bills as defensive measures to “protect” farmers, the DowElanco lobbyist privately described them as a chance for agricultural corporations to go on the “offensive” against environmentalists and journalists.

And even if the industry failed to pass more bills, he added, they could at least force environmental groups to burn time and money fighting them.

“This example of proactive legislation puts agriculture and industry on the ‘offensive,’ and at the very least, occupies valuable time and resources of enviro groups in their efforts to defeat it,” the lobbyist wrote.

These memos are more than 30 years old. But the insights they reveal are relevant today, now that Florida lawmakers may stretch the state’s food libel law even further.

In the story I wrote about this last week, I focused primarily on how the changes in Senate Bill 290 and House Bill 433 — which would allow agricultural corporations to sue over defamation of non-perishable food or of any industry practices used in food production — would enable the sugar industry to file food libel lawsuits.

But this also extends beyond Big Sugar.

For instance, the Tampa Bay Times last week published an investigation into human health problems caused by water pollution across Florida — pollution that may be linked, at least in part, to agricultural contaminants like fertilizer and animal waste.

That’s just the sort of investigative news coverage that could come into the ag industry’s legal crosshairs if this food libel expansion passes when the Florida Legislature convenes next month for its 2026 session.

*To paraphrase Barbossa, five is more what you’d call a guideline than an actual rule.

Keep an eye on HB 443 and SB 518

The first Florida trial against weed killer Roundup is set for March (WUSF)

See also: Activists fight Mosaic’s ‘moot’ argument over radioactive byproduct in Polk County roads (News Service of Florida)

See also: It’s been 25 years since America decided to save the Everglades. Where do we stand? (South Florida Sun-Sentinel) ($)

See also: Water pollution puts Floridians at risk of severe health problems (Tampa Bay Times) ($)

Shot and chaser

Florida bill could restore local control over development. Does it go far enough? (Miami Herald) ($)

See also: Florida lawmakers promote ‘Blue Ribbon’ developers at public’s expense (Florida Phoenix)

Richard Corcoran wants more money lol

New College tuition hike may contradict Trump ‘compact’ (Suncoast Searchlight)

See also: DeSantis wants New College to take over the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus. Could that happen? (Tampa bay Times) ($)

‘Rising housing costs, insurance premiums and climate concerns’

As cost of living rises, fewer people are moving to Florida — and more are leaving (Miami Herald) ($)

See also: Florida’s Latino families squeezed by high costs of health care, child care (WLRN)

Delaying elections because you think your side will lose is really bad for democracy, actually

DeSantis still hasn’t called special election for vacant Miami state House seat (Miami Herald) ($)

Perspectives

DeSantis must answer for illicitly diverting millions (South Florida Sun-Sentinel) ($)

DeSantis spending scandal was ‘corruption at the expense of children’ (Orlando Sentinel) ($)

DeSantis’ agenda, your children’s money (Tampa Bay Times) ($)

Wily Susie Wiles Heads For The Lifeboat (Wide Awake America)