Occupation Food policy analyst Name Dennis Avery | Role Author Children Alex Avery | |
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Born October 24, 1936 (79 years old) ( 1936-10-24 ) Los Angeles, California Known for Support of biotechnology in farming. Global warming skeptic. Books Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years, Saving the planet with pesticides and plastic, Global food progress 1991 | ||
Dennis T. Avery (born October 24, 1936) is the director of the Center for Global Food Issues at the Hudson Institute, where he edits Global Food Quarterly.
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A food policy analyst for the past 30 years, Dennis Avery began his career with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, served on the staff of President Lyndon Johnson’s National Advisory Commission of Food and Fiber, and, prior to joining Hudson, was the senior agricultural analyst for the U.S. Department of State. He was the author of several books, including the New York Times Bestseller Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years which he co-authored with Dr. S. Fred Singer of George Mason University in Virginia.
Avery was an outspoken supporter of biotechnology, pesticides, irradiation, industrial farming, and free trade, as well as a long-time critic of organic farming and farm subsidies. He did not believe that DDT causes egg shell thinning in eagles. Hudson Institute's financial backers include major agricultural companies (e.g. ConAgra, Cargill) and pesticide manufacturers (e.g. Monsanto Company, DuPont, Dow-Elanco, Sandoz, Ciba-Geigy.
Dennis Avery is the father of Alex Avery, who also works for the Hudson Institute.
Organic food and E. coli
According to critics he was the source of a claim that organic food is more dangerous to eat than food produced using chemical pesticides because of usage of animal manure in organic farming. Specifically, in a 1998 article for the Wall Street Journal, he claimed the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) had conducted studies showing that eating an organic diet carried an 8-times the risk of E. coli infection than eating a conventional diet. Despite the fact that the CDC had never conducted any such testing, the Avery article was widely quoted. The New York Times wrote about him: "Dennis T. Avery wants organic food to go away. And he doesn't care what it takes."
Climate change
Avery believed that the global warming is part of a natural cycle and therefore unstoppable. Avery had also predicted that the next 20 to 30 years will bring cooling temperatures.