EU to vote on "Franken Food" Rice

Rice is daily food for half of the world's population. Genetically engineered (GE) rice, on the other hand, is a threat to our health, our agriculture and our biodiversity.

Most countries have shied away from allowing risky experimentation with the world’s most important staple crop and at present, no GE rice is grown commercially anywhere in the world. But Bayer, the German chemical giant, has genetically manipulated rice to withstand higher doses of a toxic pesticide called glufosinate, which is considered to be so dangerous to humans and the environment that it will soon be banned from Europe.

In the coming weeks, the European Union will also decide whether or not this GE rice can enter EU countries, appear on supermarket shelves and end up on our dinner plates. If the European Union approves the import of Bayer GE rice, farmers in the US and elsewhere may soon start planting the manipulated crop.

As a cereal grain, (rice) is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in tropical Latin Amercia, East, South, and Southeast Asia. It is the grain with the second highest worldwide production, after (corn).

  Hubei, China — In a startling development that may have repercussions on exports of China's biggest crop, Greenpeace has uncovered genetically engineered (GE) rice, unapproved for human consumption, that appears to have been planted and sold illegally in China for the last two years. 

The Chinese government has not authorised GE Rice for commercial planting, and has to date permitted only field testing. Nevertheless, it appears GE Rice is being sold, planted, consumed, and possibly exported in China, one of the largest exporters of Rice. Many of the markets to which China sends its rice demand GE-free grain, and the contamination could negatively impact China's rice sales, particularly in Japan, Korea, Russia, and the European Union.

No country in the world has commercially released GE rice. In the US, despite widespread plantings of GE maize (corn) and soy, no commercial GE rice crops have been planted for fear of consumer and market rejection.

The European Union has restricted rice imports from the United States, while Vietnam and Thailand, the world’s biggest exporters of rice, have announced their commitment to grow only GE-free rice.

...“At least three multi-million dollar class action lawsuits have been filed by farmers and traders
seeking damages from Bayer Crop Science, the company responsible for the US contamination,” states the Greenpeace study. “The world’s largest rice processor has already stopped buying US rice because of brand damage. In China, attempts by the Government to control the illegal sale and sowing of GE rice seeds have clearly failed. The contamination has spread like a plague across China and now into the global rice supply.”

Strides have been made by the US rice industry to regain market share after genetically engineered traits were found to have mixed with conventional rice supplies, disrupting trade.

The USA Rice Federation said nearly all test results for the Southern long-grain rice crop for 2008 were negative for the presence of genetically engineered (GE) traits.

It comes two years after trace amounts of regulated GE rice (called Liberty Link) were found to have “commingled” with supplies of conventional rice, which led several trading partners to refuse US rice exports.

“FUTURE of Rice” was written by Dr. Emilio Borromeo, who holds a doctorate in genetics, worked for IRRI and is now a freelance consultant on sustainable agriculture and GE crops; and Dr. Debal Deb, who has a Ph.D in ecology and founded in 1998 the first non-governmental rice gene bank in east India.

And it’s not as if there are no other alternatives to GE rice to boost productivity and create sturdier, more resistant, and even more fragrant rice. Many existing or promising technologies—that do not involve genetic engineering—“not only solve pest and disease problems but create additional sources of income and food for farmers and communities.”

Contrary to another myth proffered by the same companies, GE crops do not reduce the need for pesticides, nor have they increased farmer incomes. As the experience with BT cotton in India has shown, pests quickly gain resistance to GE crops too, and negate the very raison d’etre of GE. Also, most GE crops are targeted towards a specific pest and while the GE crop may be able to repel this pest for a while, farmers are soon forced to use pesticides anyway as secondary pests take over.

AHMEDABAD: An organic cotton project initiated by the city-based textile manufacturer Arvind Ltd in 33 villages in the backward Akola region of Maharashtra seems to have saved farmers in those villages from suicide.

"There has not been a single case of farmer's suicide in the area where we have launched the project in February last year," said Arvind agri-exports chief manager Mahesh Ramakrishnan.

Since 2005, around 5,000 farmers in the region are reported to have killed themselves, mainly because of huge debts, he added.

The project, which avoids the use of fertilisers and pesticides, has already begun raking in cash for farmers.