The Ecologist, the once-venerable UK environmental magazine, has launched another salvo in its campaign against Golden Rice. The vitamin A enhanced staple is being promoted by GM advocates as one tool among many to address malnutrition. But Daniel Ocampo, a campaigner with Greenpeace Southeast Asia, which has promoted violent attacks on sustainable GM rice fields, repeats the familiar anti-GMO claim that the non-profit project is nothing more than a stalking horse for Big Ag:
In Greenpeace’s opinion, the tens of millions of dollars invested in the development and promotion of GM ‘Golden rice’ would have been better spent in supporting solutions that work.
If Golden Rice is released in to the environment, it will cause GM rice contamination and affect traditional, conventional and organic farmers.
It is highly likely that rice farmers will lose their markets, especially export markets, eventually causing negative impacts on rural livelihoods.
Cross pollination, which Greenpeace refers to as “contamination”– occasionally but rarely occurs in different agricultural systems, but there is no evidence to support anything other than short term, temporary and relatively inexpensive disruptions and there no examples of ‘negative impacts on rural livelihoods.’
“In the end,” Ocampo writes, “it is Filipino farmers and consumers who will be the ones to deal with the risks. Our wishes must be respected.”
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Read full, original article: Golden Rice ignores the risks, the people and the real solutions
