hello bart,
>>The rice is being promoted as a cure for blindness since Vitamin A
>>deficiency causes vision impairment and can lead to blindness .
>>According to the UN, more than 2 million children are at risk
>>due to Vitamin A deficiency.
>Dr. Shiva has made at least two substantial errors in his piece,
>serious enough that they reduce the credibility of an otherwise
>thoughtful piece.
that's what i also thought at first. but read her text again,
evidently she knows the difference between oversupply of the
vitamin and the corrinoids, but just contradicts herself in the
text..
>>highly water demanding. Vitamin A rice will therefore lead to
>>mining of ground water or intensive irrigation from large dams
>>with all the ssociated environmental problems of water-logging
>>and salinisation.
>I have never worked in Asia, but have worked with about 7,000
>hectares (17,000 acres) of rice in the US, and to a much lesser
>extent in Latin America. Dr. Shiva addresses this issue here as
>if rice will be grown to replace native vegetables, yet elsewhere
>he bemoans the loss of traditional rice cultivars to the new
>yellow rice.
that's partly true. i learned of this strange trend during a
discussion with an indian researcher, who was on an exchange
program in our station:
he told me, that more and more parts of india's rice regions are
planted with high-priced basmati rice exclusively for the export.
the government thinks it ok that farmers do produce basmati for
export to industrialized countries for a price, which allows the
grower to buy three times the amount of usual rice or any other
staple food from an industrialized country (which is a net gain of
food - in units of energy - of 200 %). the basmati varieties
consequently are grown at the cost of regional fruits and
vegetables. that also might have been the reason for their upset of
rice-tec's "american basmati". for them this meant the same, as
if someone in india had stolen the label "coke" without paying
licences...
>Part of the problem is that people are simply not eating the
>vegetable sources of vitamin A. I have encountered this as a
>common phenomenon in much of Latin America and the Caribbean.
there are two arguments i do not understand and hopefully
someone can explain it to me: IRRI has several varieties of rice,
which even now are higher in corrinoid/carotinoid content than the
rice from zurich-reckenholz. why didn't IRRI itsself come to the
conclusion, that distributing these rice varieties might be a
"golden" idea ?? the problem is known for a very long time and
remember: the variety from switzerland comes for free... (it's
another trivial experience, that the first heroin shot from a
dealer usually is given for free). but can it really cure the
sufferers or does IRRI already know more than zurich ??
second question: there are more or less large amounts of
carotinoids/corrinoids (the precursors of vitamin a) in EVERY
green, yellow and red fruit and vegetable. why then do people in
these countries suffer from a deficiency in vitamin a ? if you do
not live in the desert or the savannah (it's trivia, that these
are not the regions for growing rice), you almost cannot AVOID
eating green fruit and vegetable...
>Given that a huge percentage of kids *die* within 2-4 years of
>going blind from lack of vitamin A, this is more than an academic
>discussion.
now THAT'S an argument, isn't it? and i want to see the first
(healthy) person to stand up with a clear conscience and say:
stop that rice !! especially from one of these countries, where
during my several visits i tried and did NOT succeed to find even
ONE package (not even talking from a real bread leaf - i'm
talking of one of these large breads packages you can compress to
the thickness of a single slice) of unfortified bread and milk !!
>>"The first wave of GMOs flopped," says Margaret Mellon of the
>>Union of Concerned Scientists, a Washington lobby group worried
>>about the rapidity of GM takeup. "Now some people are hoping the
>>second wave will take up the flag and lead the parade. Golden
>>rice is part of an exercise to make the technology acceptable."
that's exactly, what i foresaw. and here comes the tough
question: should we oppose a development, which evidently
prevents blindness in more than 2 million people?? do we have the
morale right to stop such a development from our high level of
access to healthy food? do we even have the right to oppose it ?
i say NO. the only right we have is to refuse to make usage of it
for ourselfes...
should these people decide the question themselfes. agreed:
that's what biotech companies expected in the long run (after
the failure of trying to drown the consumers in GMO's
everywhere, the next attack will be "nutraceuticals". might be
successful, if they are able to proove their claims of health
improvements. won't be easy!!!)
>"They are saying 'we don't have to be told by spoilt white
>countries what to do', and rightly so. If you have blind children
>in the street and a technology that can help, then you have no
>doubts."
my answer is: may these countries decide themselfes, if they are
willing to use this rice and this technology. the only thing
thing left to us should be: warn them of the consequences we have
already experienced with market concentration, patenting,
possible risks, public relations hype and the desire of some
researchers to get rich and famous at our costs. the question
everybody should ask himself should be: would you use that rice
for YOUR OWN children, if they would bear the risk of getting
blind ?? I for myself do not dare to answer that question for
them...
---------------
klaus wiegand
+-[Quote of the day, powered by k. wiegand]--+
| |
| Nothing is as hard to do gracefully |
| as getting down off your high horse. |
| Franklin P. Jones |
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