A few weels ago, we released our article: Irrefutable Evidence Proves that Golden Rice is a Farce. In it, we highlighted that golden rice is not only inefficient at doing the very thing it was engineered to do (address vitamin A deficiency), there are superior alternatives. Kamote is an alternative staple food that produces more than a hundred times more Vitamin A.
Despite our efforts, DA is still pushing that the Philippines be the first country to approve the cultivation of GoldenRice. There is substantial pushback from the public and this past October 2, the Philippine Star realeased an article entitled “A resounding NO to golden rice!” by Cherry Ballesquas on her collumn “The Freeman”. It featured a statement from ESSA member Tresa Ruelas:
“Tragedy has struck from the DA…This spells the death to our lands, farmers lives, heritage crops, healthy food. The world will look at us with total disdain,” came this urgent message from Teresa Ruelas, founder/executive director of CAFEi (Communities for Alternative Food Ecosystems Initiative).
It also called attention to the article here on our site!
This write-up of Aeon Mapa of ESSA (Ecosystem of Stakeholders for Sustainable Agriculture) may be instructive.
Some highlights:
One: “Golden Rice was engineered to contain levels of Vitamin A. GR developers claim that it is an essential intervention due to deficiency in the nutrient in children living in developing countries. Critics point out that GR is very low in Vitamin A content and that Vitamin A supplementation through other means has proven to be cheaper and sufficient as well.”
Two. “Golden Rice is not a humanitarian effort but a play to improve public perception of that GE crops as an aid to humanity and the developing world.”
Three. “The billions of dollars that went into developing golden rice could have very easily been spent on urban gardening projects, nutrition education and other long-term sustainable solutions.”
Four. “GR is an inefficient and costly crop to grow. Farmers need to buy seeds yearly and the toxic chemicals that need to be used damage the health of the farmers, consumers and contribute to the climate emergency which affects us all.”
Calling all to take action against GR!
You can read the whole piece here.
We hope that our collective efforts will be enough to put a stop to this big mistake.
Hi there, I enjoy reading through your article post.
I like to write a little comment to support you.