Activists attacked and destroyed a field of “golden rice” in Pili, Camarines Sur in the Philippines.
The field was part of a scientific trial of golden rice designed to evaluate its safety and utility as a crop. Golden rice is a hybrid strain of rice which is particularly high in beta carotene, a potent source of vitamin A. The rice has a distinctive golden brown color. It is estimated that each year 2 million people die and 500,000 children go blind from vitamin A deficiency. Scientists hope that golden rice, which is sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, can save many of them.
The trial rice field was managed by the Philippines affiliate of the nonprofit International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). The rice was almost ready for harvest when the field was attacked, and within 15 minutes, the rice trampled, uprooted and destroyed. The IRRI reports that the trial will continue in other fields in the Philippines, Indonesia and Bangladesh.
IRRI spokesman Dr. Bruce Tolentino said, “we all want to answer questions about Golden Rice. Therefore, we need to test Golden Rice and test it according to the best and most rigorous research standards. This means continuing field trials to ensure there is adequate data and analysis that will enable informed decisions on Golden Rice. At IRRI, we remain dedicated to improving nutrition for everyone in the Philippines and in other rice-eating countries,” Tolentino said. “We’re here for the long term, and Golden Rice and other healthier rice are part of our efforts to help reduce malnutrition among rice-consumers.”
Anti-GMO campaigners have characterized those who attacked the rice field as concerned “farmers,” yet investigators have labeled them “paid activists.” A hard left group called the “Peasant Movement of the Philippines” appears to be directly responsible for the attack. While questions remain as to who paid the activists who conducted the attack, it is clear that what would seem to fit the definition of an act of eco-terrorism, was incited by international NGOs including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Food First. These and other groups have worked together to conduct a mis and disinformation campaign against golden rice and other GMO foods labeling them dangerous “frankenfoods.”
er of Asian agriculture that monopolize seeds, limits bio-diversity and lessens dietary diversification, which primarily causes malnutrition… We condemned the IRRI, and Syngenta’ for raking huge profits while destroying agriculture contrary to its promise. We don’t need GMOs . What we need is genuine agrarian reform to resolve hunger and malnutrition. Further, we call on our members’ across Asia to uproot all GM crops in their country, intensify campaign against GMOs and strongly oppose its commercialization.”The organized campaign against golden rice is deeply anti-science and is based on “ideological considerations, not scientific skepticism.” With the overwhelming scientific evidence to date showing golden rice to be environmentally and nutritionally safe, Greenpeace has been forced forced to voice contrived objections such as, “Vitamin A rice could, if introduced on a large scale, exacerbate malnutrition and ultimately undermine food security because it encourages a diet based on one staple rather than increase access to the many vitamin-rich food plants.” Really Greenpeace? Greenpeace has flamed false fears in the Philippines and elsewhere by labeling golden rice a “threat to food security and nutrition” and demanding that nations permit “no room on our plates for golden rice.”
The New Scientist quotes Beau Baconguis, program manager for Greenpeace Southeast Asia based in the Philippines as saying that, “there is not enough safety testing done on any GM crops
.” Baconguis believes the activists who destroyed the rice field took matters into their own hands because they were concerned about their crops being contaminated. “I think that the farmers know what they want. What they want is a safe environment that they can grow their crops in,” she says.
The “Peasant Movement” and the NGOs egging them on have declared war against science itself. By destroying the trial field they were vandalizing not a rice field, but the 
scientific method. They do not want the field trials to continue, fearing the result will be a solid scientific conclusion that golden rice is not only beneficial to the health of those who eat it, but poses no meaningful ecological threat. Destroying this field has as much to do with valid research and activism as medieval book burning. Closed minds are no way to conduct science.
If Greenpeace, the APC and those who follow their lead continue their misanthropic attempts to thwart the scientific development and evaluation of golden rice, they position themselves squarely against the progress of science. The blindness and death of millions will be on their heads.
Quick quesiton to help me clarify this issue: How much will golden rice seeds cost and will farmers need to purchase every year, or will they be able to harvest seeds from their existing crops to use in subsequent crops. Also, how much do current “plain” seeds cost and are they able to be harvested from mature crops for use in subsequent crops?
Suggest you read the debate here http://www.agbioforum.org/v10n3/v10n3a04-unnevehr.htm
Your questions are clearly ones to which you have pre-conceived answers and are designed to generate the usual stuff about hybrid plants owned by their creators.
After reading this I searched the web for “golden rice” and came up with this counter claim. http://online.sfsu.edu/rone/GEessays/goldenricehoax.html
Which is contradicted by this:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2682994/
and the link in reply to judy cross.
Do a search for “insertion mutation” and then then tell me GMOs are inherently safe. You can’t find evidence of harm when you refuse to look for it.
Just as government has been the biggest provider of funding for the Climate Scam, government has been sponsoring research on GMOs…both Clinton and Canada’s then PM Chretien each gave Monsanto a $600 Mn grant to produce GM wheat.(Canada has 1/10th the population of the US, so Canadians got fleeced more than Americans. Canadian farmers have been fighting GM wheat because foreign buyers would stop imports if they thought the wheat was contaminated.)
The alleged ignorance of foreign buyers is an educational issue and has noihing to do with safety.
Oh, my…you proved my point. The experiment was based on a single feeding of healthy adults. The object was only to determine whether the carotene was utilized. It was not to determine safety, which is acknowledged to require long term feeding studies.
acknowledged by whom? Wacktivists such as yourself?
Excellent. Vandana Shiva is well-informed. Never underestimate her.
Have animal feeding studies been done? It seems not, at least none have been published. Instead Syngenta , Gates and the Golden Rice project went straight to human feeding trials on Vit A deficient children in China, justifying this breach of ethics on “humanitarian” grounds.
http://www.gmfreecyrmru.org/pivotal/papers/feedingrice.html
Golden rice used daffodil genes to produce the carotene. Daffodils are poisonous, so why use genes from daffodil when there are so many edible sources of carotene producing genes?
http://globalresearch.ca/beyond-golden-rice-the-rockefeller-foundation-s-long-term-agenda-behind-geneticall-modified-food/13944
Remember that the “climate change” nonsense was/ is being used to justify the need for GMOs. Doesn’t that set your antennae quivering?
Daffodils may well be poisonous, (I never tried them), but genes are not. The genes for b-carotene are clearly not the ones that generate any poison from daffodils.
How do you know what that gene encodes for besides Beta carotene?
I repeat: why use a gene from a poisonous plant when so many edible ones are available?
I find it very suspicious.
I think you would find anything suspicious. Why would they want to kill off their consumers?
This article uses the idea of population reduction as the reason for being against GMOs. I say, the opposite is true. What better way to reduce population than to produce food crops that produce their own poisons, as BT corn does? The BT toxin has been show to produce irritation in mammalian intestines too.
Without long term feeding studies, there is no way these foods can be considered safe. Remember that the FDA, with no scientific evidence whatsoever, declared GM food to be “substantially equivalent” to non-GM food. What hubris. Science by Fiat!
Nice lie about the intestines. If that were true farmers would switch away from GE derived feeds. The crops have been used safely for over 20 years. You are a science denier by willful ignorance.