A University of California report has exposed the injustice that prohibits a genetically engineered additive to rice. Without it the death of millions of children has occurred, notably in Africa and India. The researcher opinion lays the blame for the international prohibition of producing Golden Rice through genetic engineering (GE) to powerful forces that hide behind environmentalism. California, of course, is one of the world’s major rice producers, ready to supply the vitamin enriched product, especially for export.
The report appears in the current issue of the university’s respected update bi-monthly publication compiled by the Agriculture and Natural Resources Department. The authors are Justus Wesseler, professor for Agriculture and Food Economics at Technical University, Munich; Scott Kaplan, research assistant at Energy Biosciences Institute at UC Berkeley, and David Zilberman professor in the Agricultural and Research Economics department at UC Berkeley.
The researchers recall that the nearly worldwide objection to creating Golden Rice was led by Greenpeace. It was perhaps the most notorious radical environmentalist group at the turn of the century, characterized by a series of risky, but widely reported escapades aimed at derailing broadly accepted programs and activities that were in the news. The movement’s objections were always based on what it perceived as dangers to the environment.
The report also refers to the 180-degree turnabout by former Greenpeace leader and co-founder Patrick Moore, who now promotes a group called “Allow Golden Rice Society.” He has recognized that the poor have paid the majority of the price of the fight against GE technologies.
The UC paper suggests that policies regulating GE technologies need to be reassessed. Perhaps that reassessment needs to begin with a bunch of hangers-on environmentalists in your community and mine who haven’t yet determined that many environmentalist beliefs and policies have nothing to do with human welfare.
Read the full, original article: Ag at large: Golden failure
