What do you think of this: GM rice ?

Doing a search on rice, I did find out that:

The California Rice Commission on Monday approved a biotech company's request to grow the state's first crop genetically modified rice to contain 2 human protein that fight infection: lactoferrin and lysozyme.

http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,62860,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2

If it is aproved in USA, other countries will follow.

What a disaster!

cristina

This message was edited Apr 2, 2004 2:48 PM

Edited out.

This is a very emotive subject for some people.

I personally don't think you can compare additives to processed foods such as Vit C or E numbers to additives to the plants whole being itself. You can avoid the medical and 'enhancements' made to processed food by buying fresh ingredients, you can't avoid them in a GM crop.

This message was edited Apr 1, 2004 4:25 PM

This message was edited Apr 1, 2004 4:26 PM

Tampering with any food crop when there isn't enough research to prove the safety for long term intake and any side effect of increased intake for these proteins is a worry.

Protein are the main cause of allergies.

Other consideration are the potential effect on endocrine disruption.

The interaction of food intake with any drug (medicine) is another issue.

Introduction of strict laws for labelling genetically modified food. Another.....

One of the things that really bothers me, is that, like corn, this is another wind pollinated grass. How on earth do they propose keeping this from contaminating any non-GM fields in the vicinity. I think it is especially bad, since rice tends to grow well only in very specific locations. They are going to have to grow it in proximity to other rice fields.

My favourite was the time Monsanto or some other huge company sued a farmer whose field was contaminated with pollen from their copyrighted strains for sowing seeds he saved from his fields.

Yes...and Monsanto won.

There's lots of intense feelings about GM crops...pro and con. I'm in the No GM camp.

I'm not interested in being a lab rat for big agri-business.We eat enough things that have been added to our food without pesticides and other things bonded to the DNA structure of a food crop.

No one knows what the long term effects are, and very little has been done to make sure these crops are safe. The US is admitting these foods into our system without any checks and balances...most of the rest of the world is being more cautious. Since the big agri-business corporations have well paid lobbiests in Washington, they get to pretty much run the show.

eje is right...these Frankenfood crops are contaminating other crops in fields with their pollen...and we don't know where it will end up.

It's not the same thing as adding to your food other minerals and such...this is actually bonding to the DNA of a plant...it's there forever. You can't just say you don't want it.

One little story that may make you sit up and think..there were 2 crops of soybeans sown on opposite sides of a large pond. Geese came in to the water and ate the soybean seedlings that were not Roundup Ready...the Roundup Ready (GM) soybeans on the other side of the pond were left untouched. What did the geese know that we dont?

Monsanto always wins.

Ok, like Baa, I've typed this in and deleted most of it. Suffice it to say that from this farmer's point of view, too many scientists are playing with fire and the farmers and consumers are the ones getting burned. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it.

I know of no consumer or farmer who has suffered from these porducts.....no evidence to support that.
These fears and reactions are the same as when various medical testing treatments were first introduced. man's fear is always worse than the realities, history proves that.

It's not only health issues that are a problem.

As the report stated, Japan, at present, doesn't want GM rice, other countries have a ban on GM exports too. Should a consignment of rice or other grain prove to have GMOs in it, the recipient countries can send the shipments back, perhaps it could even escalate to certain embargos within the international trading community. This kind of stuff can get highly political and that's not good for any country.

It's easy to forget the agricultural economy in developed countries, after all we have so many other industries that bring in more money. Ideally, we'd all have food that is grown and processed locally and naturally, but this situation isn't happening. When the agricultural economy is hit by this, the entire rural economy suffers, we ignore the rural economy at our peril.

These big agribusinesses are trying to get GMO crops grown in the third world nations without proper testing. These nations rely on developed countries buying in their produce but many countries are still skeptical so their market could well be harmed. These are the very people who just don't need this kind of crop or monetary situation right now, not while their customers are shouting for independant testing before they will buy. They certainly don't need to have the ability to save their own seed for next years crop taken away from them. Agribusinesses aren't making these for the good of the world, this is business, big business.

I think one of the big bugbears of GMOs is that we don't have an exclusion choice, once a normal crop is contaminated, that's it, end of story for the consumer. If they prove to have long term health benefits, great stuff, but they should prove it first before saying things like potential health benefits. Potentially I'm rich every Saturday just before the lottery numbers are announced ...

I would just prefer to see the claims proved before I make my desicion but I fear, like many other things, that's another choice that will be made for me by the money men.

Excellent post, Baa! I'm so glad to read that. Thanks!

I, too, have read of the repercussions, and possible/probable repercussions, of GMO crops. Those repercussions go way beyond just changing a plant's genetic make-up, they affect life (lives) that come into the environment/contact w/that plant, whether that life is another plant growing near it or someone who consumes it.

(Think about it: to take the genes out of a jelly fish and merge it into potatoes just so that plant glows in the dark thereby telling the "farmer" it's time to water the spuds...sumpin wrong w/that picture, eh?)

As for "no consumer or farmer who has suffered from these porducts"(sic)...no offense, rikerbear, but apparently the farmer mentioned above in eje's post suffered. Fortunately it was restricted to financial suffering and not physical health. (Altho I suppose those two go hand in hand, eh?). As for other incidences of people suffering from these products?...this is such a very new avenue that there hasn't been time for long-term studies. (Remember how DDT was accepted once? Only years later did "we" discover how dangerous it was not just to human life but also to all Life.)

It was an Ontario farmer named Percy Schmeiser who was sued by Monsanto. He was convicted; but, has appealed his case to Canada's Supreme Court. His website is here: http://www.percyschmeiser.com/ There are aspects of his defense which I do not find entirely credible, however, Monsanto makes it sound like he stole their seed or some such, which is also apparently not true. It sounds like he noticed portions of his crop were more pesticide resistant than others, and purposely selected that seed to save and plant again.

I'm not sure if folks can read this article from Nature; but, it is quite interesting. http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nbt/journal/v19/n5/full/nbt0501_396.html
One section illustrates my point above particularly well:

"In a separate report released early this year by the Royal Society of Canada (Ottawa, Ontario) but which is not part of the trial record, experts note that throughout Western Canada "herbicide-resistant volunteer canola plants are beginning to develop into a major weed problem." This Expert Panel Report on the Future of Food Biotechnology also points to the "inherent difficulties in the containment of genetic material in the context of normal farming practices in which literally millions of small seeds are produced and harvested over large areas. . ..""

Then there is the case of the Nelson's of North Dakota:

http://www.cropchoice.com/leadstry.asp?recid=244

"(February 16, 2001 -- Cropchoice news) -- After a few seasons growing Roundup Ready soybeans, the Nelson family isn't impressed. But the fact that the transgenic seeds haven't increased their yields or decreased their use of pesticides is the least of the Nelsons' worries. Monsanto is suing them. The St. Louis-based biotechnology giant alleges that the family saved the seeds from one season and planted them the next, a violation of the company's patent."

Interesting article from a rice farmer's perspective about the pending introduction of GMO rice:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/04/08/MNGKL61R0T36.DTL

"Delevan, Colusa County -- Joe Carrancho isn't particularly fond of environmentalists or their rules that he feels have made it harder for him to be a rice farmer over the past 40 years. He's a duck-hunting, self-made immigrant with a photo of President Bush by his desk, and he wants to be left alone to farm."
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"'If the Japanese have the perception -- underline perception -- that our rice has (genetically modified organisms) in it, then we're done,' said Carrancho, a past president of the Rice Producers of California. 'You can put a bullet in our head.'"

Newest update:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/04/10/MNGFT63DST1.DTL

"Modified rice won't be planted -- for now State halts planting of rice for pharmaceutical use
Public to have say before state rules on bioengineered crop"