Author’s note: You can learn more about greenwashing in a previous article in The Costa Rica Star about the Hotel RIU in Guanacaste.

Fifteen students and a Spanish teacher from West Richland High School in Illinois are coming to Costa Rica later this year. According to a recent news report in the Olney Daily Mail newspaper, the summer trip is being financed in part by a donation from a farmer in Richland County, an agricultural community in southern Illinois.

Mr. Weidner is one of 1,245 farmers chosen by the agricultural and biotech giant as part of the Monsanto Funds America’s Farmers Grow Communities program. According to the description on the program’s website, Monsanto’s campaign consisted of television and radio commercial spots that highlighted the role of farmers in the fabric of American society. Farmers chosen by Monsanto in the campaign received $2,500 each, and they were given the chance to donate to a local non-profit. Mr. Weidner’s grandson is part of the group of high school students coming to Costa Rica, and thus he decided to donate the money towards the trip. His first choice had been to give Monsanto’s funds to the local chapter of Future Farmers of America.

The Spanish teacher who is coming with the students, Theresa Marriott, told the Olney Daily Mail that she grew up in a farm and traveled to Costa Rica when she was a high school sophomore.

For readers who are familiar with Monsanto’s track record in Costa Rica, the fact that the company’s funds will be used to finance a student trip to our country may seem like accidental irony, or even a bit of poetic justice. Monsanto is a company that has decided to not set up an office in our country due to resistance to Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO), particularly the infamous MON 810 corn seed, which has been deemed environmentally disruptive by German legislators and banned from cultivation in that country. For this and other reasons, several communities in Costa Rica are now transgenic-free territories by virtue of certain laws enacted to that effect.

There is no evidence that could point to greenwashing on Mr. Weidner’s part; after all, he was free to donate the funds he received from Monsanto to non-profits as he pleased. It is not clear either if Mr. Weidner is aware of Monsanto’s status in Costa Rica. Could the Monsanto campaign be considered greenwashing? Probably, although it is important to remember that GMO crops are common in the United States, particularly the controversial MON 810 seed. The mass farming techniques of the U.S. are different from the focus on sustainable development utilized by many Tico farmers.

Greenwashing or not, Monsanto’s campaign put more than $3 million on the coffers of non-profit across rural America, and the students from West Richland will get to visit us. We can only hope that during their trip they get to learn about Costa Rica’s stance on transgenic crops.