Scientists have warned that a court decision to block the growing of the genetically modified (GM) crop Golden Rice in the Philippines could have catastrophic consequences. Tens of thousands of children could die in the wake of the ruling, they argue.
The Philippines had become the first country – in 2021 – to approve the commercial cultivation of Golden Rice, which was developed to combat vitamin A deficiency, a major cause of disability and death among children in many parts of the world.
But campaigns by Greenpeace and local farmers last month persuaded the country’s court of appeal to overturn that approval and to revoke this. The groups had argued that Golden Rice had not been shown to be safe and the claim was backed by the court, a decision that was hailed as “a monumental win” by Greenpeace.
Many scientists, however, say there is no evidence that Golden Rice is in any way dangerous. More to the point, they argue that it is a lifesaver.
I’m highly skeptical of anti-GMO claims. Usually they come from the same family of pseudoscience as anti-nuclear and anti-vaccine
GMOs aren’t inherently bad but many crops are genetically modified to be resistant to glyphosate and other herbicides so they can douse the fields with the stuff.
Even in that case it’s not the modified plant itself that’s harmful but the remains of roundup left in it after being sprayed.
left in it? I wish. More like left everywhere
Right. The genetic modification protects the crops from glyphosate, not you.
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Imagine? We’d be able to write our name in the grass like we can in the snow.
Microplastics in fetuses, glyphosphate in our piss, and cancer rising in young people. The future is truly amazing.
There are very valid arguments against GMOs even if they’re safe from a strictly scientific point of view. Those mainly pertain to control over seeds by corporations that will allow them to exploit poor farmers. This is happening to a huge extent in India where many farmers have committed suicide because of these practices.
Yep, exactly. I’m against Monsanto suing farmers for cross-pollination when the wind blows.
Seed patents are dumb. Once something has been planted it belongs to the ground now, if it spreads that’s too bad for giant corpo.
EDIT: the link above is the the wrong case. I found this link which breaks things down better.. I’m still of the opinion that seed patents are dumb, and that if farmers harvest seeds from crops on their fields they should be allowed to replant them.
You’re link isn’t even about the “cross pollination” situation (which was also done intentionally by the farmer) but about someone buying the seeds from a third party and then claiming that they are allowed to replant the seeds because they aren’t bound by the licensing agreement.
We can argue whether or not this farmer should be allowed to replant the seeds in this case, but trying to paint it as if the seeds flew into his property and then he was sued for it is a disgusting misrepresentation of what actually. It was done very intentionally by the farmer. They aren’t some innocent victim, but one who thought he could get the ip without paying for it. We’re talking about capitalists fighting each other.
Thank you! Sorry I had gone done a rabbit hole and copied the wrong link. There’s a lot of Monsanto lawsuits it turns out.
This was the one I was thinking of, but its not as readable. Also, it’s not 100% whether it was solely because of the wind, although that’s the claim. https://www.ielrc.org/content/n0407.htm
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_Canada_Inc_v_Schmeiser
If you don’t want to read the link, it wasn’t accidental. Some glyphosate resistant crop flew into his property. The farmer killed off all of the other crops with glyphosate and then harvested the seeds from the surviving plants, knowing they were Monsantos ip, and replanted them.
The farmer did not argue in court that it was accidental, but that because it was his private property and he had no agreement with Monsanto that he had the right to do this.
Again we can argue whether or not he had the right to do this. But this whole “poor farmer did nothing and got sued!” Is just straight up blatantly misleading anti GMO propaganda. I don’t believe you are intentionally spreading it, but you are none-the-less.
Thank you. I wasn’t aware that he was aware it was Monsanto’s. I also know that farmers aren’t automatically in the right (look at the dairy industry practices and political lobbying for instance). It’s relieving to know that it wasn’t the original seeds that resulted in the lawsuit, though I think I do lean towards the idea of once seeds are planted the plants and anything they produce belong to the one who planted them.
Do you have any more info about seed patents? I mean I understand it takes a lot of research to develop the pesticide-resistant crops (and also know that an organic label means nothing) but am having a really hard time reconciling the idea of needing a license to plant seeds that you harvested yourself.
All “valid arguments against GMOs” are ultimately arguments against capitalistic profit-at-all-costs practises.
When you take the profit margin out of the process, there end up being no valid arguments against GMOs, as all such profit-free GMOs that end up moving to production are there purely to benefit humanity as a whole, and not to restrict said benefit to a rarefied group of obscenely wealthy people. It’s the GMOs with capitalistic roots which are problematic for capitalistic, Parasite-Class-greed related reasons.
Yeah, that’s basically what I said.
Your ‘argument against GMOs’ is an argument against seed patents, not GMOs. That’s the same as saying there’s an ‘argument against insulin’ because big companies own the patents and charge lots of money. The product is absolutely irrelevant to the conversation.
That’s not an argument against GMOs, just a specific kind of GMOs.
It’s an argument against commercial use of GMOs in agriculture by monopolistic megacorporations.
It’s an argument against seed patents and capitalism.
Farmers by and large don’t reuse seeds now, patenting seeds so they can’t be reused is not limited to GMO, farmers are free to reuse seeds that are no longer patented, and farmers committing suicide in India has nothing to do with GMO specifically, but issue with farming in general.
These are all just made up anti GMO talking points only loosely related to GMO, if even at all.