WASHINGTON, D.C. — The announcement came just in time for April Fool’s Day, but it was no joke. Green America announced the winners of its online contest to determine the country’s biggest “Corporate Fool” – and the top vote-getter was Monsanto Co., followed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Chevron.

“Monsanto was voted the top corporate fool for 2012 by Americans across the nation,” said Todd Larsen, corporate responsibility director for Green America. “People are deeply concerned about the negative impacts that Monsanto’s corporate practices and products are having on farmers in the U.S. and abroad, the environment and consumers.”

Monsanto is one of the largest insecticide and pesticide suppliers to agriculture. One of its most popular products is Roundup, which is used by farmers in a variety of applications, as well as consumers for weed control on their lawns.

Larsen said to honor Monsanto as the top Corporate Fool for 2012, a donation was made in the name of its CEO, Hugh Grant, to Navdanya, an organization in India that has worked with five million farmers to create seed sovereignty, food sovereignty and sustainable agriculture over the past two decades, and helped set up the largest direct-marketing fair trade, organic network in the country.

Farm World talked with Cathy Durham in Monsanto’s communications department to get the company’s response to the announcement. Durham promised to provide a statement, but after a week no statement was forthcoming either by telephone or email. Repeated efforts to contact Durham or anyone else at Monsanto were unsuccessful.

Larsen said Green America’s contest began in early March and collected votes through its own website on nine companies and organizations, based on the voters’ judgment of worst corporate practices. The other six companies receiving votes were not announced by Green America. He pointed out Monsanto’s legacy includes Agent Orange, DDT and massive aerial spraying of Roundup as a drug-war tactic, as well as unlabeled and untested genetically modified (GMO) crops. Larsen said Monsanto’s practices enable factory farming and put small farmers out of business.

In addition, he charges the company pushes GMO crops in the developing world, which results in locking farmers into cycles of debt and dependence on chemical crop inputs.

The second-place vote-getter, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, has benefited from the Citizens United U.S. Supreme Court decision, said Larsen, allowing it to spend millions of dollars for television and radio advertisements for or against candidates, while not required to disclose its donors. As a result, he said corporations can spend unlimited money on political advertising through the Chamber of Commerce without meaningful disclosure to shareholders or the general public.

Larsen explained third-place Chevron has drilled for oil for more than three decades in the Ecuadorian Amazon, and in that time has dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater into the rainforest. As a result, he said locals have suffered a wave of cancers, miscarriages and birth defects.

Last year, an Ecuadorian court ruled in favor of local communities and ordered Chevron to pay $18 billion in cleanup and restoration efforts.

“We had nine strong nominations of the most damaging companies in the United States for our Corporate Fools contest,” said Larsen. “We’re very excited that our grand prize winner is Monsanto for its impacts on farmers, ecosystems and consumers, and that we have two deserving runners-up. I think one lesson we can take from our winners is that no matter how much money a corporation spends on advertising to make itself look good, the public can see its actual impacts and call that company out on its worst practices.”

Ronnie Cummins, director of the Organic Consumer Assoc., said Monsanto was deserving of the award. “With the rapidly growing awareness of the health and environmental effects of our corporate-controlled industrialized food system, it is no surprise to us that Monsanto has been chosen as the top Corporate Fool.

“The fight against the ‘Biotech Bully’ of St. Louis embodies some of the most pressing issues of our time, including the current health and obesity crisis, climate change (one allegation in the debate has been that industrial agriculture is a major contributor) and the fight against corporate rule.“

Green America is one of the country’s leading green economy organizations. It was founded in 1982 as Co-op America and is self-described as providing the economic strategies, organizing power and practical tools for businesses and individuals to solve social and environmental problems.

It is online at www.greenamerica.org