Genetically modified foods have an image problem all over the world. Field trials of GM wheat were targeted last year in the UK, and now some .
The protestors destroyed 1000 square metres of Golden Rice 鈥� a variety created to reduce vitamin A deficiency.
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Golden Rice is engineered to contain beta-carotene, a precursor of vitamin A which gives the rice its distinctive yellow colour. Vitamin A deficiency kills up to 2 million people and causes blindness in 500,000 children worldwide each year. It was recently shown that replacing half of a child鈥檚 rice intake with Golden Rice provides them with 60 per cent of their daily vitamin A requirement.
Not everyone views it positively though. 鈥淭he Golden Rice is a poison,鈥� Willy Marbella, a farmer and deputy secretary general of the , told New 杏吧原创. Marbella, who attended the protest at Pili, Camarines Sur, where the Golden Rice in a trial site was uprooted, says malnutrition is caused by poverty and needs to be addressed by support services, not genetically modified crops.
The , but it won鈥檛 be made available to eat until further testing is completed, says the , a non-profit research body that develops new rice varieties. IRRI runs the test site, in partnership with the Philippine Department of Agriculture.
Contamination fears
Beau Baconguis, programme manager for Greenpeace Southeast Asia based in the Philippines is concerned, however. 鈥淭here is not enough safety testing done on any GM crops,鈥� she says.
Baconguis believes the farmers took matters into their own hands because they were concerned about their crops being contaminated. 鈥淚 think that the farmers know what they want. What they want is a safe environment that they can grow their crops in,鈥� she says.
But Bruce Tolentino, deputy director general at IRRI, says there was almost no risk of contamination. 鈥淭hese are confined field trials,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e fenced. They鈥檙e covered by nets. They鈥檙e protected from rats and birds. And, we hoped, people.鈥�
He also pointed to . And because the beta-carotene that Golden Rice contains doesn鈥檛 give it a competitive advantage over wild rice, it is unlikely to endanger biodiversity.
Tolentino says the destroyed field was part of a study aiming to figure out whether Golden Rice will behave just like ordinary rice, thereby not requiring farmers to change their practices. 鈥淲e were hoping we would get data from this field but we also have five other locations to get the data from. So it is not a major blow to the research process,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ut it is a major blow to public acceptance of what鈥檚 going on.鈥�
Although Golden Rice is not being developed for profit, activists argue that it is being used as a propaganda tool to soften the image of GM crops. Golden Rice is the 鈥減oster boy鈥� of the industry, says Baconguis. 鈥淭his is playing with the lives of people when you are using Golden Rice to promote more GMOs in our food.鈥�
