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In a speech to a business conference organised recently by Greenpeace, Robert Shapiro, the head of Monsanto, the US biotech company, ruefully acknowledged that his group had lost the battle to persuade people about the possible merits of genetically modified food. ‘Because we thought it was our job to persuade,’ Mr Shapiro admitted, ‘too often we forgot to listen.’ As the old millennium draws to a close, it is worth examining the context in which these remarks were made and the implications for corporate communications practitioners.