Greenpeace Yellow Rice
Food Chain Radio Show #993
Michael Olson, Author & Urban Farming Agriculturalist
Greenpeace and Syngenta GMO Yellow Rice
Is Sygenta’s GMO Golden Rice good rice?
Guests: Greenpeace Co-Founder Patrick Moore, Allow Golden Rice Now; and Greenpeace Senior Scientist Janet Cotter, Greenpeace International Science
The image of a young blind girl stumbling along a back street of the developing world is the latest weapon in the public relations war over the acceptance of genetically-modified organisms, or GMOs.
This young girl need not be blind, we are told, if the world were to graciously accept the planting of “Golden Rice.”
Golden Rice is white rice that has been re-engineered to contain the genes of other species that carry beta carotene, which is a precursor of Vitamin A, which is the vitamin needed for healthy eyesight. It is the beta carotene that gives the white rice its golden color, and that gives the biotech industry its weapon in the fight for global acceptance.
The message the weapon carries is simple: Feed the hungry Golden Rice instead of white rice!
Golden Rice was developed by the Syngenta Corporation and given free to the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines “for the benefit of farmers worldwide.”
Some look at this gift of free Golden Rice seeds from a corporation that earns its way selling seeds to farmers and see a Trojan horse filled with GMOs for invading the farmlands of unwilling nations.
These two ways of seeing the gold in Golden Rice lead us to ask…
Is Syngenta’s GMO Golden Rice good?
