Alex Avery, the son of Dennis Avery

Dennis Avery

For the Indiana State Representative, see Dennis Avery Dennis T. Avery is the director of the Center for Global Food Issues at the Hudson Institute, where he edits Global Food Quarterly....

, is the director of research and education with the Center for Global Food Issues at the Hudson Institute

Hudson Institute

The Hudson Institute is an American think tank founded in 1961, in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, by futurist, military strategist, and systems theorist Herman Kahn and his colleagues at the RAND Corporation...

, where he conducts research on the environmental impacts of different farming systems. Avery is an outspoken critic of organic food

Organic food

Organic foods are foods that are produced using methods that do not involve modern synthetic inputs such as synthetic pesticides and chemical fertilizers, do not contain genetically modified organisms, and are not processed using irradiation, industrial solvents, or chemical food additives.For the...

 and farming

Organic farming

Organic farming is the form of agriculture that relies on techniques such as crop rotation, green manure, compost and biological pest control to maintain soil productivity and control pests on a farm...

 and has compared their supporters to Hezbollah. He is also the author of The Truth About Organic Foods, a controversial book critical of the organic food movement, published by Henderson Communications, a small agribusiness consulting group and independent agricultural-oriented publisher.

The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

pointed out that Avery's non-profit employer has received funding from Monsanto Company, DowElanco and the Ag-Chem Equipment Company.

He has appeared on or been quoted in TV and newspapers such as CNN

CNN

Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

, Fox News, Showtime (Penn & Teller

Penn & Teller

Penn & Teller are Las Vegas headliners whose act is an amalgam of illusion and comedy. Penn Jillette is a raconteur; Teller generally uses mime while performing, although his voice can occasionally be heard during their performance...

's show), the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today

USA Today

USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...

. Avery has written a chapter for a book on organic pesticide

Pesticide

Pesticides are substances or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling or mitigating any pest.A pesticide may be a chemical unicycle, biological agent , antimicrobial, disinfectant or device used against any pest...

s published in 2007 by the American Chemical Society

American Chemical Society

The American Chemical Society is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 161,000 members at all degree-levels and in all fields of chemistry, chemical...

. Avery is also an Advisory Board Member for Hanover College

Hanover College

Hanover College is a private liberal arts college, located in Hanover, Indiana, near the banks of the Ohio River. The college is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church . The college was founded in 1827 by the Rev. John Finley Crowe, making it the oldest private college in Indiana. The Hanover...

's Center for Free Inquiry.