Golden rice refusal kills millions

Western Farm Press ^ | May 6, 2014 | Don Curlee

[artichokegrower]

A University of California report has exposed the injustice that prohibits a genetically engineered additive to rice. Without it the death of millions of children has occurred, notably in Africa and India.

The researcher opinion lays the blame for the international prohibition of producing golden rice through genetic engineering to powerful forces that hide behind environmentalism. California, of course, is one of the world’s major rice producers, ready to supply the vitamin enriched product, especially for export.

[Black Agnes]

So are all the other vitamin A precursor containing veg seeds.

Those can be grown locally. In way way way less time than it takes to grow a crop of rice BTW. Rice is ~120 days from seed to seed. Squash is maybe 50 days. And bears continually after that.

The malnutrition problem in a continent with nearly a 12m growing season temperature range isn’t due to a lack of GMO seeds. The same warlords that are hogging the rice supplies now will just hog the new rice supplies.

[artichokegrower]

Monsanto and other transnational corporations seek to open foreign markets for their products to expand their revenues.
Monsanto Company was one of the first companies to grant free licences to farmers in developing countries to grow their engineered rice. Also a Roundup Ready rice was never brought on line so no herbicide market was created for Monsanto products.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Actually, you are correct. The people who back those opposed to GM food are and have long been opposed to the great Norman Borlaug’s “Green Revolution”. They do not just want the death of millions, however, they want the death of billions.

In past they have even proposed poisoning food aid with drugs that induce permanent sterility, or that would slowly kill those who ate the food, perhaps in a similar way to how the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis kills some insects.

B. thuringiensis produces crystals that when ingested breaks down and paralyzes a small part of the digestive tract. When enough of its digestive tract is paralyzed, its host stops eating and starves to death.

However, luckily for billions of human beings, these monsters have never found a bacillus that would do this in humans.

Impatient monsters, one of them (Dr. Eric Pianka) proposed using an airborne ebola to kill nine out of every ten people in the world. If Hell exists, these are the kind of people who belong there.

[Bigg Red]

+1

[Bigg Red]

Well said!

[glasseye]

“I’ve been saying this for 30 years. The whole environmental movement is about depopulation... well, ego first. Of course, “they” are superior and deserve to live but the rest of us are definitely disposable.”

Ding ding ding, we have a winner!

I can remember a Sierra club event 30 years ago talking about how Yosemite Valley would be paradise but for the ‘blight’ of people.

Of course Sierra Club members did not include themselves in the ‘blight’.

[EricT.]

Without it the death of millions of children has occurred, notably in Africa and India.

Yeah because natural rice, which has been grown for millennia, somehow suddenly cannot grow without screwing around with its DNA.

Pure propaganda right there in the second sentence of the article.

[Black Agnes]

I hate to tell you, but...the same people that are pushing the GMO crops (Gates, Buffet, Soros) are also pushing the radical population control agenda.

Africa, having been derided for having ‘too many people’ by these same ideologues, is beginning to be suspicious of any technologies they bring. Including GMO ones.

Starvation in Africa isn’t due to lack of GMO crops. If you believe that you’ve never been to Africa.

[listenhillary]

You mean we should stop our government from giving our tax dollars away to impoverished countries so US corporations can sell us tax dollar subsidized grain and food to corrupt governments?

What a novel idea!

[Boogieman]

GM Food Paranoid: "Hey, that rice might not be safe. We're not sure if it is or not, or what harm it might do. Better that you starve than find out though."

[Boogieman]

“In tropical Africa, they could bear for months and months and months because there aren’t any freezes.”

Much of Africa has highly alkaline soil so I don’t think your squash would do very well there.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Sure it can grow.

But a large number of children died from malnutrition or were blind because of it in the past.

Now we can do something about that.

It is like putting Iodine in salt. Sure people lived without it. But they also had goiters and retardation at much higher rates too.

I know that many want "those people" to just go away or rise up and destroy their rulers with rocks and sticks. When it doesn't happen the way they wish they try to wrap themselves in a cloak of virtue by saying they are "protecting them"

It is pretty evil when you think about it.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

I see you have never been to Africa.

They grow pumpkins where they can. They also eat the leaves and seeds. Where they can being the operant term.

And no, the plant does not bear for months and months.

However it is when you have a set amount of money to spend and you can buy a five kilo bag of rice that will feed your family for a week or five kilos of pumpkin that will feed them for a couple of days you go for the rice.

First world people amuse me at times.

[Black Agnes]

Wrongo. Africa is a humonguous continent. Many different growing areas there. There are an absolutely astounding number of native growing crops that contain beta carotene.

BTW, one of the mainstays of African diets is the yam. Loaded, absolutely loaded, with beta carotene. Our yams and sweet potatoes were originally brought here by African slaves and slave traders very early on in the history of the US.

Rice doesn’t like alkaline soil either, just another BTW. Most crops don’t.

Much of Africa is far too arid for rice to be a reliable crop. Sorghum, teff and maize are grain mainstays there. Those are much more reliable crops if the monsoon is iffy.

And the last thing you want to do, as an African farmer, is be dependent on a supply line for seeds, fertilizer or other crop inputs. It only takes one bout of ‘social and political disruption’ for you to starve with that sort of business setup. And Africa is nothing if not ‘social and political disruption’ on a grand scale.

And, as one of the posters above noted. It isn’t a lack of availability of beta carotene that’s a problem. It’s a lack of dietary fat to allow it to be absorbed and utilized properly.

Somehow, Zimbabwe managed to feed its entire population and have enough to export (and be called the ‘bread basket of Africa’) before the introduction of GMO crops. How was that possible?

[Black Agnes]

I’ve lived in Africa. I grew up there. My pumpkins produce, reliably, for 5+m in this country prior to their being killed by frost. I regularly grow 100+lbs from a single hill.

Rice is imported in Africa. Not grown reliably in much of Africa due to aridity problems. Rice loooooves water. Much of Africa is far too dry for rice to be a reliable crop. The countryside outside the city where we lived was covered with maize fields. And sorghum. Both are drought tolerant. Rice? Not so much...

Therefore, that 5lb bag of rice has to be imported. And, being easy to buy, people stop growing their own food locally. Enter the warlord, supply disruptions, and voila, starvation on a grand scale.

The months and months are relative. You plant a rice seed, it’s at least 120d before you get another edible rice seed. You plant a squash seed, it’s 50d before you get something edible.

Our friends in Central Africa grew a lot of yams. Lots and lots of yams. Which are loaded with beta carotene. The problem in Africa, as stated by a poster above, is not a lack of beta carotene, it’s a lack of dietary fat. Golden rice does nothing to address that issue. Or the political issues which make pretty much any outside meddling in the food supply a moot point.

[TennesseeGirl]

Don't forget about yams. They're nutritious, have a small amount of fat to convert the fat-soluble vitamins, and are indigenous to West Africa. Yams were a staple of many Africans foods along with the occasional game meat for centuries.

Wikipedia: "Yam is an important dietary element for Nigerian and West African people. It contributes more than 200 calories per person per day for more than 150 million people in West Africa, and is an important source of income. Yam is an attractive crop in poor farms with limited resources. It is rich in starch, and can be prepared in many ways. It is available all year round, unlike other, unreliable, seasonal crops. These characteristics make yam a preferred food and a culturally important food security crop in some sub-Saharan African countries."

[Black Agnes]

The local market where we lived was full of yams. 12m out of the year. Yams are grown in much of Africa and don’t require vast resources of water like rice. We ate a lot of yams when we lived there.

[jdege]

Yes, but yams aren’t a cash crop. It’ll feed their kids, but it won’t put money in their pockets.

And that’s the major problem, here.

[DUMBGRUNT]

Squash is maybe 50 days.

Each year we spend $$$ pushing nontraditional crops; unsuccessfully all around the globe.

Here in the US, look at the school lunch program! They do not eat it!

Billions spent on EBT cards and it is not rice or squash that is purchased!

Also notice that the big cities are 'food deserts'!

Very difficult to match food to the culture.

The old line is 'you can lead a horse to water; can't make it drink'.

Note: I love squash and grow a few varieties; the stuff is prolific!

[Black Agnes]

Rice is also a non traditional crop in Africa. It’s too dry in Africa to grow rice reliably.

Why is this group pushing rice? Why not splice the same gene into sorghum, which IS grown in much of Africa? And already utilized dietarily as a cooking staple. Ie, the little ladies already know how to prepare that in tasty dishes for their families!

BTW, they do eat squash in Africa. The descendants of Africans in this country eat plenty of squash too judging by the small gardens I pass by every day.

But I have serious questions about the ‘need’ for vitamin A rice in a continent with many many sources of vitamin a precursors in the diet already. particularly a source of vitamin A that can’t be reliably grown in much of the continent and must be imported.

But the question I asked another poster is valid. Zimbabwe grew enough food to feed its own population and export enough more to be called the ‘bread basket of Africa’. Long before the first gene gun was used to splice cross species genes into food crops. How was that possible?

Truly starving Africans would eat squash or anything they could. In bad famines they eat tree bark.

This ‘solution’ does nothing to ‘fix’ Africa’s food reliability problems. In fact, if it utilizes a food that must be imported, it creates more problems long term than it solves. All it takes is one supply line disruption for many many people to simply starve to death. Which, given that the people pushing the GMO agenda are also radical population control wackjobs, may be their desired outcome.