[jcranmer]

People at large generally have a set of blinders on where the monetary incentives of large companies are clear and undeniable, but the monetary incentives of concerned organizations are passed over. An anti-vaccine group is going to pay good money to a researcher who can find links between vaccine and $EVIL, and indeed, this is already known to have happened (see Wakefield, Andrew).

In the case of being against agrichemicals, there is a readily identifiable commercial industry: organic agriculture. (And, again, don't discount the size of an industry just because it's the "little guy" working against "the man"--the health supplement industry is an example where the "little guy" is actually guilty of everything they accuse of "the man" of, and much worse). In addition, there is a pretty staunch anti-GMO activism running around in Europe as a whole which provides ready funding fuel here.

The entire glyphosate controversy, to me at least, has long been a case of "[the people against it] know it's somehow evil, because big agriculture, we're just trying to figure out something that will actually show it."