this post was submitted on 26 May 2024
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Scientists have warned that a court decision to block the growing of the genetically modified (GM) crop Golden Rice in the Philippines could have catastrophic consequences. Tens of thousands of children could die in the wake of the ruling, they argue.

The Philippines had become the first country – in 2021 – to approve the commercial cultivation of Golden Rice, which was developed to combat vitamin A deficiency, a major cause of disability and death among children in many parts of the world.

But campaigns by Greenpeace and local farmers last month persuaded the country’s court of appeal to overturn that approval and to revoke this. The groups had argued that Golden Rice had not been shown to be safe and the claim was backed by the court, a decision that was hailed as “a monumental win” by Greenpeace.

Many scientists, however, say there is no evidence that Golden Rice is in any way dangerous. More to the point, they argue that it is a lifesaver.

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[–] Supermariofan67 119 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I'm highly skeptical of anti-GMO claims. Usually they come from the same family of pseudoscience as anti-nuclear and anti-vaccine

[–] [email protected] 49 points 6 months ago (1 children)

GMOs aren’t inherently bad but many crops are genetically modified to be resistant to glyphosate and other herbicides so they can douse the fields with the stuff.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (5 children)

Even in that case it's not the modified plant itself that's harmful but the remains of roundup left in it after being sprayed.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 months ago

left in it? I wish. More like left everywhere

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 6 months ago (7 children)

There are very valid arguments against GMOs even if they're safe from a strictly scientific point of view. Those mainly pertain to control over seeds by corporations that will allow them to exploit poor farmers. This is happening to a huge extent in India where many farmers have committed suicide because of these practices.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (4 children)

Yep, exactly. I'm against Monsanto suing farmers for cross-pollination when the wind blows.

Seed patents are dumb. Once something has been planted it belongs to the ground now, if it spreads that's too bad for giant corpo.

EDIT: the link above is the the wrong case. I found this link which breaks things down better.. I'm still of the opinion that seed patents are dumb, and that if farmers harvest seeds from crops on their fields they should be allowed to replant them.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago (1 children)

There are very valid arguments against GMOs

All “valid arguments against GMOs” are ultimately arguments against capitalistic profit-at-all-costs practises.

When you take the profit margin out of the process, there end up being no valid arguments against GMOs, as all such profit-free GMOs that end up moving to production are there purely to benefit humanity as a whole, and not to restrict said benefit to a rarefied group of obscenely wealthy people. It’s the GMOs with capitalistic roots which are problematic for capitalistic, Parasite-Class-greed related reasons.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

Yeah, that's basically what I said.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

Your 'argument against GMOs' is an argument against seed patents, not GMOs. That's the same as saying there's an 'argument against insulin' because big companies own the patents and charge lots of money. The product is absolutely irrelevant to the conversation.

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 6 months ago (15 children)

The author didn't address it in the least, which is troubling, but how exactly did they prove to the court that the rice hadn't been shown to be safe? They seem to have made a convincing argument and I'd rather like to know what it was. Seems like an important part of the story to me.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 6 months ago (6 children)

According to the Greenpeace website:

But behind the hype, GE ‘Golden’ rice is environmentally irresponsible, poses risks to human health and could compromise food, nutrition and financial security.

My take from this: It may be that they targeted more than the safety, but also the possibility of gene flow (to other rice crops including wild rice), possible effects on biodiversity, and the ever-present patent issues that come up with GMO's.

Scanning down the page though, they don't specifically say why it poses risks to human health other than some hand-wavey stuff about how it would make people rely on rice instead of providing other sources of vitamin A in their diets.

They also brought up that at least one experiment with the rice on children in China wasn't done ethically, and also that this could be imposed against people's religious beliefs.

It mentions the cross-contamination gene flow stuff, but I thought because rice was self pollinating that that wasnt as big an issue with GM rice. (I'm not an expert by any means.)

Their general argument seems to be "new way bad, old way good" without any scientic evidence. They didn't have to convince scientists though.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 months ago (4 children)

I'd like to point out that Greenpeace or the local population doesn't have to prove that GM rice is bad. It's the other way around:

Big corps have to prove that GM rice is good and has no adversarial long-term effects, which is impossible to prove.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Which big corps would that be exactly?

It's perfectly possible to show that it's safe to any reasonable standard: https://www.irri.org/golden-rice-faqs

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jafc.9b01524

The only biologically meaningful difference between GR2E and control rice was in levels of β-carotene and other provitamin A carotenoids in the grain. Except for β-carotene and related carotenoids, the compositional parameters of GR2E rice were within the range of natural variability of those components in conventional rice varieties with a history of safe consumption.

How exactly do you propose that the genetic makeup of the rice is going to impact the person eating it, if chemical analysis shows it's not meaningfully different from any other rice?

You can't demand that people prove something beyond unreasonable doubt. At some point you have to be able to articulate a concern to justify further scrutiny.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

That would be Syngenta, the big agricultural corp involved in the project.

  • Syngenta retains commercial rights, although it has no plans to commercialize Golden Rice.
  • "Humanitarian Use" means (and includes research leading to): 
  • Use in developing countries (low-income, food-deficit countries as defined by FAO)
  • Resource-poor farmer use (earning less than US$10,000 per year from farming)

The key part to me is the under $10,000 USD per year from farming requirement. What happens when a larger farm gets accidental cross pollination?

What happens to farms with organic certification if their neighbours start growing golden rice and it cross pollinates?

There is a history of Western nations using “humanitarian” outreach to sabotage developing nations.

Assuming that Syngenta are entirely altruistic is a huge risk for developing nations.

Source: http://www.goldenrice.org/Content2-How/how9_IP.php

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (1 children)

What big corps? Golden rice is developed by scientists working for universities and distributing it via NGOs for free.

And they've produced dozens of studies over the past 24 years showcasing its effectiveness and safety.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

Honestly, that's where my comment started... But everything I found showed that studies had proven that it was safe. So I changed tack and started focusing on the Greenpeace side.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago (12 children)

If gene flow from golden rice managed to successfully hybridize the four gene complex providing the iron, zinc, and beta-carotene nutrients into other rice crops, that would be incredible. It's so unlikely to happen and the scientists involved have to work so incredibly hard to get it to happen, because it would be a tremendous good for the world if it did.

We could only hope that such gene flow would occur naturally from the golden rice.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 6 months ago

My friend got her doctorate engineering rice to grow in high salinity areas. The goal was to aid farmers near brackish water and without access to good farmland. Greenpeace would definitely not like that.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Way to go greenpiss. Anti-scietific fear mongering that will only hurt.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 months ago (1 children)

That tracks for Greenpeace. They've been fighting nuclear power since their inception.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I mean with nuclear power there are atleast some things objectively problematic like the high costs of the energy produced and the garbage that is left off. I would not have a beef with thrm protesting GMO's either, where they are used to essentially make the farmers dependent on the seller of the crops. It is this black and white aproach thats really got me grinding my gears because at this point its more of a well known cult than a group for the environment.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (7 children)

If we had gone nuclear 60 years ago climate change would be nothing more than an interesting theory. Greenpeace has as much share of the blame for the current state of the world as Exxon mobil does.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Basically, the issue is that this Golden Rice is a foreign species in Philippines. That comes with a lot of complications.

Most importantly, local farmers don't have the knowledge how to deal with this new type of rice. They are worried that their native species are being replaced and could go extinct, which would be difficult to revert. It would lead to yet another platform lock-in.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It's important to save and continue to grow heirloom species, sure. But almost no cultivated species are native to where they're grown.

Patent bullshit aside.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago (9 children)

It's interesting about native species. Think about apple trees in the UK. They grow very well here, the climate is suited perfectly, they don't seem to be invasive (talking as a layperson here). Yet they were introduced about 2000 years ago by the Romans. Does that mean they're old enough to now count as native? I mean, if you go back far enough, everything came from somewhere else. Unless you're looking at a deep-sea vent where life very first evolved, then it has spread from somewhere else.

Maybe if I was a botanist or ecologist, I would know the actual answer. But I'm just a person who loves thinking about things in a philosophical way, without necessarily wanting to research in-depth answers for every little puzzle

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

I mean, if you go back far enough, everything came from somewhere else.

The Wikipedia article on Native Species is a good start. It's a bit blurrier than I thought but I think the important part is that it's evolved along with the local ecosystem.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 6 months ago

This article is pretty close to pure clip bait and possible just media spin from Greenpeace, other more reputable articles don't even mention Greenpeace and highlight a lot of local support against the rice. https://www.isaaa.org/blog/entry/default.asp?BlogDate=5/8/2024

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (2 children)

What a terrible article. A polarized solution: either the dangerous rice or nothing... As if no other possible food sources could exist or could ever have been considered. And nobody saw this coming, and nobody had any backup plans.

The backup plan was to blame Greenpeace and throw their hands in the air, magically absolved of any responsibility. Jesus.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago

What evidence do you have that it's dangerous? We've got decades of testing that shows it's safe and effective, and the experts all agree that there is no evidence that it's dangerous.

I feel like I'm debating against the anti-vaxxers of the COVID pandemic all over again: ignorant fear over the opinion of experts.

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