Philippines Approves GMO Rice to Fight Malnutrition

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From https://www.voanews.com/science-health/philippines-approves-gmo-rice-fight-malnutrition

Philippines Approves GMO Rice to Fight Malnutrition

By Steve Baragona
December 19, 2019 03:55 PM



Golden Rice, left, contains beta carotene, the same vitamin A precursor that makes carrots orange. (Credit - IRRI)

A breed of rice genetically engineered to combat vitamin A deficiency has received approval from regulators in the Philippines.

Supporters say "Golden Rice" could remedy a condition that kills up to 250,000 children each year worldwide and blinds twice that number, according to the World Health Organization.

It's the first genetically modified organism (GMO) designed to fight a public health issue to get a green light from food safety officials in the developing world.

Golden Rice has faced vigorous opposition from GMO opponents throughout its development, citing safety concerns and other issues. Protesters destroyed test fields in the Philippines in 2013.

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[Farmer-Rick]

1. It is mind boggling that the poor in the Philippines need a weirdly manipulated grain

To avoid a disease or death. Just because they can't afford carrots in their rice.

If they can't afford the easy to grow carrot to offset the leaching of vitamins by rice, what makes you think they can afford the expensive weird yellow rice? It's a solution looking for a problem.

There is already an easily provided solution....cheap to grow carrots. Creating a weird expensive solution is not going to solve the problem......it's their poverty that causes the problem.

[Igel]

2. The creators of the rice strain were special.

They insisted that the golden rice seed be no higher than other commercially, non-GMO rice seed.

They insisted that the farmers own the seed at the end of the growing season, so that they can replant using the golden-rice strain. The seed are fertile.

They insisted that the golden-rice strain be allowed to "introgress" into publicly available local strains of rice. If that happens, not everybody needs to grow the rice.

They insisted that the license--which won't last long given the previous two paragraphs--be free and include any and all sales within a country, so that it can penetrate the urban food chain. Since in most countries these days a significant portion of the population doesn't grow its own food, and since rice is a common staple even for those in poverty, it's a reasonable sort of thing to do.


The other objection to the rice was how much you'd need to eat to get your daily dose of vitamin A--something like 3 kg, which is about 10 times the usual average daily amount of rice consumed. Except that it's not like the folk get *no* vitamin A. They don't get enough. So they need a supplement, not a full-on replacement for their RDA.

Carrots are cool weather crops. They don't do well if it's warm. In the tropics you need to take special care to mulch them. In Houston if I plant carrots from May to July it's not so great. Planting them from October through January is risky--it needs to be warm enough in January for them to germinate, but there can't be any polar vortexes coming along to push the temperatures down to the low 20s. Frost is okay; hard freezes, not so much. (Yeah, they can be covered. For the 3-4 nights a year when it gets that cold.) They're also an added cost for those in poverty.

It's not a silver bullet, but if we wait for silver bullets to solve each problem completely, in the end we have a lot of problems and people saying, "Somebody, do something--get us a silver bullet!" Most of the opposition to this variety of rice is opposition to GMO anything. Better malnourished kids than ritual impurity.

[SCantiGOP]

3. Thank you, Igel

A very reasoned response to a subject that is often looked at emotionally and not scientifically.

I doubt many on this site have ever truly been hungry. Had it not been for science altering the field of agriculture over the last two centuries, Mr Malthus would have been correct and hundreds of millions more would have died of starvation.

[Farmer-Rick]

4. American Carrots grow much better in the cool temps

Many of the differing species originating in Asia grow best in heat. But many species do just fine under the snow. It really is the amount of sunlight that stops their growth not the temps.

I've grown carrots throughout the winter under hoop tunnels. They stop growing for about 30 days in the winter when there are fewer than 10 hours of sunlight. But they stay healthy and sweet and start growing again in January.

Carrots are some of the easiest things to grow. Pick the right type and you can grow them all year round except when/where there is less than 10 hours of sunlight. https://www.suburbanhobbyfarmer.com/growing-carrots/

That said the round chunky carrots grow well in the heat if you mulch and provide some water and lose soil. There are tropical carrots that do well in the heat. Most carrot seeds need over 70F to germinate. The roots need cooler temps but a good mulch will give you cool roots. https://www.ranchodelicioso.com/growing-carrots-in-the-tropics/

It's good the creators of this GMO rice wants them to be available and cheap.....like real seeds. Do you have a link to what you claim they want?