Why Is This So Familiar?
Why is this claim about genetically modified (GM) rice so familiar?
Genetic engineering also helps achieve other goals of the organic farming movement. By reducing the use of pesticides and by reducing pests and disease, it can make farming more affordable and thus keep family farmers in business and assure local food security. It can also make food more nutritious: In 2011, plant breeders expect to release "golden rice," a genetically engineered variety that will help fight Vitamin A deficiency in the developing world, a disease that contributes to the deaths of 8 million young children each year.
They say that this great strain of rice will be released in three years. Oh, yes, I remember that claim like it was yesterday.
AstraZeneca P.L.C., a giant pharmaceutical company, said today that it would sell a genetically altered strain of "golden rice" in the developed world and also help make the technology freely available to the world's poorest countries.
The London-based company, which announced the agreement here in a news conference with one of the scientists who invented the rice, said it would be made available in three years. The rice, which is fortified with beta carotene that converts to vitamin A, would be given away in the developing world in the hopes of improving the health of undernourished people and curing some forms of blindness.
AstraZeneca's announcement came in May of 2000.
The problem is at least threefold. First, the giant agribusiness companies have a great deal more incentive to push new GM varieties that work with their pesticides (like Roundup Ready canola, corn, cotton, and soybeans) or that have other, marketable traits. Amazingly enough, Roundup Ready soybeans have not been there years away from market for the last eight years.
Second, the problem with pushing "golden rice" is that current rice varieties are already quite nutritious—as long as the grain is cooked and eaten whole—think brown rice, not white rice. And plenty of cheap, effective ways to get vitamin A already exist—think carrots and other vegetables. But solving the problem of getting actually existing nutritious food to the poor would require asking why tens of millions are subsisting on little more than polished rice.
Third, despite knowing a lot about the genomes of various plants, scientists do not have a full understanding of how organisms incorporate genes into their genomes, or whether the various bits of "junk DNA" actually affect those organisms. It would be great if someday, scientists could say for sure that inserting gene ZZ9-alpha would do these three things and these three things only—but that day is not coming anytime soon.
Labels: "golden rice", AstraZeneca, Genetic engineering, Monsanto, stupid corporate tricks
