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‘A catastrophe’: Greenpeace blocks planting of ‘lifesaving’ Golden Rice
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 26 May 2024
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Rice is a well-understood plant with well-understood properties. One of these properties is that it just doesn't have many vitamins. If you want vitamins, you have to get another plant as a side-dish.
What these mad scientists propose is to change the very nature of rice to make it something that it is not, to solve a problem (Vitamin A deficiency) that could be approached with much less severe measures (like, growing carrots as a side-dish).
Agriculture is like medicine: You should always attempt to use the approach that is least invasive and has the smallest possible impact, while still solving the problem. This way, you minimize complications and reduce risks.
I think you may need to consider the cost and shelf life difference here. Suggesting "what if they just ate a more expensive vegetable more" seems like a pretty callous take.
I know they grow carrots in the phillipines but they definitely aren't native to there either.
Why can’t they just fortify their caviar with vitamin a?
Indeed, "eating more food" is generally agreed to be the best way to remedy childhood malnutrition and food insufficiency. It's hands down agreed upon to be the best possible approach.
Unfortunately, children who suffer from these maladies often lack additional food to eat, which is why there are several lines of inquiry for solving this problem:
Inevitably, that means things like "vegetables that tolerate bad soil", "vitamin fortified rice", or "fast growing wheat", or "crazy fertilizer strategies".
It's a sad reality that most places that can't grow enough food to properly feed children typically lack the ability to just grow more, to say nothing of diversifying into more resource intensive crops. otherwise they would probably do that.
If just grow carrots lol was adequate, tell me again why people are deficient in the nutrients golden rice has over baseline rice, please.
Like bill nye said, gmo's are just a tool in your tool box to solve the answer and they are a really useful tool for the future as things get harder for us
Rice already has the beta-carotene genetic pathway. It's just missing the final enzyme gene to cause production of the precursor product.
Furthermore, people have already tried to introduce alternative crops. But people who live there aren't interested. If a crop like carrots isn't a part of their cuisine, they have little to no interest in altering the foods they eat. Especially if they're already subsistence farmers with limited crop growing areas.
that sounds like it would require paying people enough to afford more than just rice and we can't be having that now can we