Take Action to prevent GE Rice
Category: Rice News, GE Rice, Take ActionThe European Commission will decide in mid-May, wether the controversial genetically modified rice by Bayer CropScience, LL 62, will get approval for Europe. This decision will be significant for Asia as well, since many Asian governments might simply follow the European decision.
Rice is the world's most important staple food - with more than half of the global population eating it every day. It has been grown around the world for over 10,000 years and is cultivated in 113 countries. Rice is also a key ingredient in a wide variety of processed foods ranging from baby food to the more obvious rice noodles. But all this is under threat as genetic engineering (GE) continues to creep up on our most valuable food.
Today, GE rice only exists in field trials. But all that could change tomorrow as agri-chemical companies and some governments around the globe are trying to commercialise it. Ecological farming is the safest solution to the food crisis and looming climate change disasters. Keeping rice GE-free is not just about consumer choice or the environment - it's a lot bigger than that. It's a matter of global food security, human rights and survival.
Stand up for your rice!
Risky business
The German chemical giant Bayer is trying to sell a herbicide resistant variety of GE rice to countries - for commercial planting. Conventional and organic rice is at great risk from being contaminated by GE strains and controlled by multinational corporations and governments.
The rice made by Bayer (called LL62) has been genetically engineered to withstand high doses of glufosinate, a herbicide sprayed on rice fields to control a wide range of weeds. It's no surprise that Bayer also makes the glufosinate. Any use of the GE rice will boost their chemical sales as a consequence. While this is a nice set up for Bayer shareholders it places farmers, consumers and the environment at risk. Glufosinate is considered to be so dangerous to humans and the environment that it will soon be banned in Europe in accordance with recently-adopted EU legislation.
The Bayer GE rice has been shown to have a different nutritional composition than its natural counterpart. It also has a high risk of producing superweeds by transferring its new gene to weedy relatives. Rice traders and producers worldwide reject the GE rice, because of high economic risks. The global rice industry lost some 1.2 billion dollars in 2006, when another GE rice variety from Bayer contaminated global food supplies.
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