A year after the uprooting of Golden Rice, more than a hundred farmers, scientists, consumers and basic sectors are calling for the immediate halt of the planned field tests and commercialization of Golden Rice (GR) in the Philippines. GR they say, will only pose more problems rather than solving the problem on hunger and malnutrition.
Mr Bert Autor, spokesperson of SIKWAL-GMO (Bicol Initiative Against Golden Rice) and member of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Bikol (KMB) said that they do not want Golden Rice as it will pave the way towards more GMOs and tie more farmers to indebtedness.
“More small farmers are into greater debt because of high costs of production and dependency on modern seeds and other production inputs”, said Autor. “Now they are introducing this Golden Rice to us. We believe that this is again a ploy to further control our seeds and extract profit from farmers. We do not want Golden Rice in Bicol!”
Read the full, original article: Philippines: Farmers call to stop ‘Golden Rice’ trials
