Disastrous. A Greenpeace-funded lawsuit to ban "golden rice" in the Philippines has prevailed. This GMO variety has saved the lives and improved the health of countless children worldwide. Anti-GMO hysteria is just one of the reasons I'm unenthused by mnost established environmentalist groups - ThreadSky

stephenjudkins.bsky.social • 315 days ago

Disastrous. A Greenpeace-funded lawsuit to ban "golden rice" in the Philippines has prevailed. This GMO variety has saved the lives and improved the health of countless children worldwide. Anti-GMO hysteria is just one of the reasons I'm unenthused by mnost established environmentalist groups

Comments

mikeabbott.bsky.social•315 days ago

Fuck Greenpeace, it's whatever bullshit hysteria that can get that sweet moola with them.
The difference between them and Alex Jones is the focus of their money making bullshit.
The similarity is the damage their greed does.

blank.org•315 days ago

So while I’m broadly in agreement about GMOs and golden rice specifically, it is not AFAIK true that it has saved lives worldwide. AFAIK (and Wikipedia seems to confirm this) the Philippines project was to be the first major rollout ever: it’s very much been a solution in search of a problem.

blank.org•315 days ago

Fun fact I ended up working for Monsanto for a few years because they bought my company. Boy was that ever a vibe-killer to bring up at parties in the Bay Area. 🤣

stephenjudkins.bsky.social•315 days ago

You are actually correct that this was the first rollout! But the problem is, in fact, very real

blank.org•315 days ago

Agreed, I just get a little tetchy about this: it’s common for articles about golden rice specifically to intimate that it was a wild success _somewhere_ but the reality is we still have no idea how it performs in the, ah, field.

kateorman.bsky.social•315 days ago

I have two questions, Firstly, in which countries has golden rice saved lives, and how many? Secondly, which people in the Philippines is the rice intended for, and what do they want -- who has brought this lawsuit?

(I have a degree in genetics, although I don't work as a scientist.)

hiom.bsky.social•315 days ago

There's so much copious evidence to suggest that GMOs are fine. This was a high school Public Forum topic almost a decade ago, and the evidence was so skewed that it made it disproportionately harder to argue against GMOs.

coolranch4lyfe.bsky.social•315 days ago

I will say Monsanto are bastards about copyright

idiota.bsky.social•315 days ago

I didn't realize Greenpeace is against 'golden rice'. I would hope they have reasons beyond it being GM. I'm against GMOs that involve profligate use of pesticides or could interbreed with non-GMOs, like corn (which is wind-pollinated) and the recently developed GM salmon.

drellie.bsky.social•315 days ago

This has directly impacted a project I'm working on and I'm pretty mad about it.

stephenjudkins.bsky.social•315 days ago

Good thing Greenpeace is running a campaign to distribute vitamin A supplements to all the children who won't get this rice anymore, like they said we should do instead! [listens to earpiece] I've been told they don't give a shit and aren't doing that

drellie.bsky.social•315 days ago

Greenwashing ludditism.

mushboom.bsky.social•315 days ago

unfortunately a lot of animal rights types are baldly anti-human. blind kids? too bad, humanity is a ~virus~ anyway. Gotta love ecofascism. I hate monsanto as much as anybody but this rice isn't made to further the fucking roundup ready monopoly

jarekfa.bsky.social•315 days ago

They used to give out Nobel Peace prizes for this type of thing: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug#Nobel_Peace_Prize

trowelblister.bsky.social•315 days ago

I feel that the Monsanto GMO seed/pesticide grift is bad but that's not this. And the GMO branding was as short sighted as saying "global warming" vs climate change. Needs a clear distinction between Monsanto BS and natural shit like grafting.

gloomygus.bsky.social•315 days ago

We are going to depend on GMO crops more and more as the climate apocalypse continues to accelerate. This kind of shit needs to end yesterday.

chbarts.bsky.social•315 days ago

depop1.bsky.social•315 days ago

GMO rice is unnecessary and dangerous. It's just another way to control indigenous peoples.

oscarcharlie.bsky.social•315 days ago

How many "long term" safety tests have been done on all the other crops we eat? The mutant grapefruit, the hybrid high yield wheat and corn, the crossbred and mutated brassicas? The hundreds of other highly bred varieties? None!

3fecta.bsky.social•315 days ago

Going against very healthy GMO altered crops and nuclear power has been shortsighted to say the least.

smpa.bsky.social•315 days ago

I get why my grandparents, who grew up in the 1910s-20s, were against nuclear power and skeptical re: GMOs; we had barely started inspecting food when they were born and Thalidomide was being prescribed when their youngest son was a toddler and it was all just kind of a lot.

But this is 2024!

chrisanders74.bsky.social•315 days ago

They need to clarify GMO. Everything we eat in the US has been genetically modified through selection. Are we going to go back to 3 kernel corn?

eean.dev•315 days ago

just a big purity fallacy masquerading as a scientific critique

jenkins.omg.lol•315 days ago

I have never understood the anti-GMO people. Humans have been altering and creating hybrid crops for centuries.

orzufancylad.bsky.social•315 days ago

Making kids blind is such a noble goal! Down with vitamin A!

brassycrass.bsky.social•315 days ago

Saved lives? I am challenging the veracity of that statement regarding "golden rice."

stephenjudkins.bsky.social•315 days ago

brassycrass.bsky.social•315 days ago

That was childish. Continue reading under "Vitamin A Sources."

Here's mine:

https://medium.com/@bswanconsulting/vandana-shiva-the-golden-rice-hoax-when-public-relations-replaces-science-3040f6fefd30

impliedoralconsent.com•315 days ago

You should look at sources that aren't 24 years old from the time Golden Rice was first proposed. History already proved your source wrong and it is woefully outdated.

Studies have shown it does improve Vit A absorption. Here's one to get you started.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4997296/

stephenjudkins.bsky.social•315 days ago

you're wasting your time, this person is not interested in learning

brassycrass.bsky.social•315 days ago

You should read the abstract. Fascinating "simulated analysis" of what could be achieved if biofortified rice's use was widespread. No mention of degredation/storage and the hailed 2009 study that found improved absorption included fats in participant's daily diet -- a necessary component.

hk47.bsky.social•315 days ago

Yeah most of what Vandana Shiba says is insane nonsense and she's generally a bad person.
Continue.

brassycrass.bsky.social•315 days ago

Ad hominem tactics do not serve the argument. What insane nonsense are referring to with her criticisms of monocropping gmo staples like golden rice?

hk47.bsky.social•315 days ago

Go look at what she said in 1999 when a huge cyclone hit India. It's a consistent throughline that she would rather people starve than eat Le ScArY gMoS. She's no different than any other self-important ideologue.

Also golden rice was in its infancy when she wrote that article, it's very outdated.

hk47.bsky.social•315 days ago

Shiba lol.

sababausa.bsky.social•315 days ago

local orgs on the ground seem convinced Syngenta was poised to take over their farms, even though the crop is in the public domain

https://www.searice.org.ph/searice-celebrates-court-decision-gmos

pseudonymble.bsky.social•315 days ago

I would read that as much more about a crop that is not indigenous contaminating their traditional varieties cultivated for centuries, as foreign and GE plants tend to do in every ecosystem. The answer to malnutrition is making a greater variety of fresh foods available, not "buy rice 2.0".

ferret.ing•315 days ago

will you be subsidising that

stephenjudkins.bsky.social•315 days ago

No. None of these people are actually interested in doing the work to get better diets or supplements to the people that need it

pseudonymble.bsky.social•315 days ago

"The work" cannot be done by an individual or a lab. Personally, I volunteer at a local food pantry and support hot meal service for the homebound & homeless because that's what an individual can do. You have no clue whatsoever who "these people" are or what solutions to systemic problems look like.

sababausa.bsky.social•315 days ago

Getting huge # in Bangladesh & the Philippines to eat complete diets is *incredibly hard*, which is why ppl hoped vit. A deficiency could be mitigated by letting ppl grow & eat a variant of their available staple but w vit. A in it

*If* you can gain local buy-in, what in principle is the problem?

sababausa.bsky.social•315 days ago

I get that local buy-in is necessary for on-the-ground adaptations to agriculture & diet to be feasible, but this situation isn't just locals resisting outside change, this is foreigners coming in and funding & fueling false propaganda about safety & corporatization

sababausa.bsky.social•315 days ago

In the mid-1980s an int'l group set up a project around Asia to develop mungbean including a large number of new hybrids and it was quite successful

Sometimes people will adopt new crops to help with malnutrition, even ones introduced by supranational agencies

https://avrdc.org/intl-mungbean-network/

lordgaebril.bsky.social•315 days ago

It’s not contamination.

moldybasil.bsky.social•315 days ago

Rice is largely a self-pollinating crop though, and the only studies to my knowledge showing notable outcrossing from gm rice varieties were to wild or weedy rice varieties not heirloom or locally cultivated ones.

mungo5.bsky.social•315 days ago

But it's not in the public domain is it, it's under patent.

sababausa.bsky.social•315 days ago

•the 1st PCT for the original GR expired a few years ago
•Syngenta (now owned by ChemChina) apparently owns & licensed some improvements, then licensed those back to the inventors
•patents are territorial, and I can't find any record of Filipino nat'l phase
https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2000053768&_cid=P20-LVE8R7-50131-1

stuartestrand.bsky.social•313 days ago

Agriculture (all types) is a big source of greenhouse gases due to its inefficient handling of crop residues & manure, & its N2O emissions. Ag should be a sink for GHG since bioprocess remove CO2, CH4 & N2O. But that can only be accomplished by GMO biotech.

stuartestrand.bsky.social•313 days ago

Let the farmers decide.

astoriaheadshots.com•315 days ago

If you’ve ever had a hybrid apple, tomato, or any type of fruit or vegetable… purchased or seen or petted an animal that is not purebred; you’ve encountered GMO. Not all alterations are bad.

kateorman.bsky.social•315 days ago

Please don't confuse selective breeding with genetic engineering. No-one has ever crossbred a fish with a tomato or a firefly with a rabbit.

nuclearbob.net•315 days ago

Fuckin Greenpeace. Maybe they’re an op.

wendelschwab.bsky.social•315 days ago

This is complete bullshit on Greenpeace's part. What a bunch of ghouls.

frankieffunk.bsky.social•315 days ago

I have worked in coalitions with a lot of environmental orgs over two decades - local, regional and national ones. I have NEVER seen Greenpeace at the table. Only time I've ever seen them is panhandling, I mean fundraising, on the street.

emphyrio.bsky.social•315 days ago

Wow!

So, uhh, who owns the patent on that ride?

jesdcay.bsky.social•315 days ago

Golden Rice is in the public domain.

emphyrio.bsky.social•315 days ago

“A resource-poor farmer may sell the golden rice so long as s/he does not earn more than $10,000 a year from it. Any other commercial use of the golden rice technology – using public or private germplasm – and any export from a producer country requires a license from Zeneca on commercial terms.”

jesdcay.bsky.social•315 days ago

That's more complex and restrictive than I had heard, thanks for the additional info

emphyrio.bsky.social•315 days ago

Does that sound public domain?

Or is this incorrect?

chrismsf.bsky.social•315 days ago

All crops we eat are GMO.

Whether that’s done through an afternoon in a laboratory or over centuries of selective- and/or cross-breeding, nobody eats unmodified food.

And people that think a fish protein in their tomatoes will make them a fish don’t deserve to be taken seriously.

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