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| - A rumor that circulated online in March 2025 claimed that the World Economic Forum demanded governments enforce bans on people growing food at home. The Switzerland-based group, established as a not-for-profit foundation in 1971, is perhaps best known for organizing the annual Davos global summit of innovators and public- and private-sector business leaders.
As one of many examples of users sharing the rumor, on March 16, author and economic researcher Chris Martenson posted (archived) a screenshot of an article from Slay News displaying the headline "WEF Demands Global Ban on Homegrown Food to Meet 'Net Zero.'" Slay News' "About Us" page describes the website as "an independent media outlet providing truthful reporting and the free and open exchange of ideas" and "unapologetically pro-America and pro-free speech."
Martenson — whose bio on X read "I proudly stand for truth and common sense" — asserted, "The WEF proposes a complete ban on home gardens to 'combat emissions.' They are still strangely silent on their private jets' contributions to emissions. You can't hate these people enough."
However, the story from Slay News did not feature any evidence of the WEF demanding that governments enforce bans on people attempting to grow food at home.
A spokesperson for the WEF previously told the Ireland-registered fact-checking organization Logically Facts, "The World Economic Forum does not support any policies that would prohibit food cultivation at home." A WEF spokesperson confirmed the authenticity of this statement to us.
Logically Facts reported its "false" verdict about the same rumor on March 16, 2024, after Slay News published a strikingly similar article one year prior to the March 2025 story. Slay News also published another version of the article in October 2024, the second of three instances in reporting virtually the same story.
In a similar fact check reporting a "false" verdict, the Australia-based RMIT University noted, "The WEF in fact appears to be supportive of homegrown food, featuring many articles promoting the benefits of urban farming on its website."
Martenson, who shared the rumor but did not originate it, has not responded to our request for comment. Slay News also did not respond an emailed request asking for evidence and answers. One minor question asked of Slay News concerned the page for Frank Bergman, the named author of the story. The author page displayed a picture resembling fake photos generated with artificial intelligence, such as those hosted on thispersondoesnotexist.com.
Breaking down the homegrown food rumor
The Slay News article published in March 2025 began by restating the claim from its headline and citing a purported "recent WEF study":
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is demanding that global governments enforce bans on members of the general public growing food at home in order to supposedly lower "emissions."
The globalist organization claims that homegrown food contributes to "climate change."
The WEF argues that banning homegrown food will help governments comply with their targets for meeting "Net Zero" by 2030.
In order to comply with the WEF's "Net Zero" targets, governments must drastically reduce "carbon emissions" by 2030 and completely eliminate them by 2050.
According to so-called "experts" behind a recent WEF study, researchers apparently discovered that the "carbon footprint" of homegrown food is "destroying the planet."
The "recent WEF study" cited by Slay News appeared in the Nature Cities publication (archived) on Jan. 22, 2024, with the title "Comparing the carbon footprints of urban and conventional agriculture."
The study's abstract, displayed above its detailed contents, described its purpose as seeking a "comprehensive assessment of the environmental performance" of urban agriculture (UA), "a widely proposed strategy to make cities and urban food systems more sustainable." Findings revealed that "the carbon footprint of food from UA is six times greater than conventional agriculture," but also that some urban agriculture crops outperformed conventional agriculture.
Jason "Jake" Hawes, an assistant professor at the University of Wyoming who helped lead the authoring of the study, told us the WEF shared no association with the work.
"There is no relationship to WEF," Hawes said. "Neither the authors, nor any of the work, was funded by or related to the WEF." A search of the study confirmed Hawes' statement, with no evidence existing of any affiliation to the WEF, including in the study authors' affiliations.
The University of Michigan did not name the WEF in its list of organizations providing support for the work. Instead, it credited the U.K. Economic and Social Research Council, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the French National Research Agency, the U.S. National Science Foundation, Poland's National Science Centre and the European Union's Horizon 202 research and innovation program.
Hawes further said: "We certainly do not recommend banning home-grown food. Rather, we conducted the work to support gardeners and policymakers in promoting low-carbon urban food growing. Many of the authors are gardeners ourselves, and we fully support the expansion of urban agriculture initiatives that are vital to community resilience and food security."
Hawes added, "For what it's worth, we suspect that particular conspiracy theory emerged from the fact that this study was part of a project called 'Food-Energy-Water Meter' or 'FEW-meter.'"
The U.K.-based University of Kent described FEW-Meter as a three-year project starting in June 2018, aimed "at measuring the efficiency of urban agriculture in terms of resource consumption, food production and social benefits." The five countries involved in the project were the U.K., the U.S., France, Germany and Poland.
Some online users promoting conspiracy theories often target the WEF and its founder, Klaus Schwab, including pointing to a real initiative Schwab introduced in June 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, known as the "Great Reset." Schwab introduced the effort as one aimed at inspiring global policies that "reflect, reimagine, and reset our world to create a healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous future."
In June 2021, BBC.com reported of the "Great Reset" that a "lack of clarity, combined with the plan being launched by an influential organization, provided fertile ground for conspiracy theories to grow."
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