Genetically engineered golden rice: a dangerous experiment

And your point? And no, I don't use canola oil.

Just curious...How many of those who replied here use Canola oil? You do know that about 80% of all the acres sown are genetically modified canola (in Canada, still accounts for an incredible % of the available Canola oil)

It was either here on current or an article I read that the vitamin/mineral content of all crops is lessening due to agricultural practices.
Organic foods however do not have as much of a problem,due to smarter farming techniques.

A push is on in some areas for farmers to change the way they till the soil, as tilling is a major factor in the lessening of vitamin/mineral content.

And this is especially diabolical to me because they are targeting children with this! Their whole PR intent is to try to frame those of us who want REAL NUTRITION, biodiversity, sustainable agriculture, scientific integrity, and ACCESS to food for the poor in this world as people who do not care about feeding the hungry... which pardon my bluntness is a load of crap. IMMORAL people cannot ever take a moral high road, least of all Monsanto, Syngenta and other companies engaged in spending more money on PR and advertising than actual scientific research that doesn't hide the true results.

Education and truth are the only ways to bring about a change. More and more people are buying organic, so we have to keep that trend going. Though for how long it can last we don't know, since GMOs have already contaminated at least half of the world's crops, and Africa is now their prime target.

The following excerpt from this article speaks loudly:

"Even Gordon Conway of the Rockefeller Foundation was moved to comment that 'the public relations uses of Golden Rice have gone too far. The industry's advertisements and the media in general seem to forget that it is a research product that needs considerable further development before it will be available to farmers and consumers.'
Pollan responded to another Conway comment, 'We do not consider golden rice the solution to the vitamin-A deficiency problem' , with a question: 'So to what, then, is golden rice the solution?' The answer, Pollan said, was plain: 'To the public-relations problem of an industry that has so far offered consumers precious few reasons to buy what it's selling -- and more than a few to avoid it. Appealing to our self- interest won't work, so why not try pricking our conscience?'"
Another opportune moment to mention "Century of the Self" for those who have not seen it and wonder how detrimental products can become so popular.....

http://current.com/items/89093555_the-century-of-the-self.htm

Get GM crops out of our fields!

Golden Rice- An Exercise In How Not To Do Science

Excerpt:

"Predominant rice consumption" is most likely to be accompanied by other dietary deficiencies. A recent study by the Global Environmental Change Programme concludes that predominant consumption of Green Revolution crops is responsible for iron deficiency in an estimated 1.5 billion, or a quarter of the world’s population. The worst affected areas are in rice-growing regions in Asia and South-East Asia where the Green Revolution had been most successful in increasing crop yield.

Research institutions such as IRRI have played the key role in introducing Green Revolution crops to the Third World. IRRI was founded in 1959 under an agreement forged by the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations with the Philippine government, and its lease for operation expires in 2003. At its recent 40th anniversary celebration, hundreds of Filipino rice farmers protested against IRRI for introducing GM crops, blaming IRRI, among other things, for promoting the Green Revolution and causing massive loss of biological diversity in rice paddies throughout Asia.

It is clear that vitamin A deficiency is accompanied by deficiencies in iron, iodine and a host of micronutrients, all of which comes from the substitution of a traditionally varied diet with one based on monoculture crops of the Green Revolution. The real cure is to re-introduce agricultural biodiversity in the many forms of sustainable agriculture already being practiced successfully by tens of millions of farmers all over the world.

As the scientists know, clinical deficiency can be dealt with by prescription of vitamin A pills, which are affordable and immediately available. "Oral delivery of vitamin A is problematic", they state. Judging from the reference cited they may be referring to the well-known harmful effects of vitamin A overdose. But why would high levels of pro-vitamin A rice in a staple food that people generally consume in the largest amounts in a meal not also cause problems connected with overdose? In particular, vitamin A poisoning has been known to result from excessive b-carotene intake in food.

Finally, why is it necessary to genetic engineer rice? "Because no rice cultivars produce [pro-vitamin A] in the endosperm, recombinant technologies rather than conventional breeding are required." This is the conclusion to the whole fallacious reasoning process. It amounts to this: rice is polished, which removes pro-vitamin. A, therefore a hundred million dollars (much of it tax-payers’ money) are needed to put pro-vitamin A into polished rice. A more likely explanation is that the geneticists are looking for funding to do their research, and have constructed, as best they could, a series of rationalizations for why they should be supported. Neither the scientists nor the funders have looked further beyond the technology to people’s needs and aspirations, or to what the real solutions are."

end of excerpt