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I don’t understand why you need to engineer vitamins into rice instead of just handing out vitamins separately? And if its that easy to save lives with vitamins
by safgasCVS 7y ago
I don’t understand why you need to engineer vitamins into rice instead of just handing out vitamins separately? And if its that easy to save lives with vitamins the implication is these vitamins have been deliberately withheld to shift this product (which isnt whats happened only that the gist of the article makes no sense when you look at the premise)
- mamon 7y agoBecause handing out vitamins costs money for each dose, and with GM rice you only need some seed (pun intended) investment and then people, even the poorest ones can grow it by themselves - it is two orders of magnitude cheaper. Also: handouts would make those people dependent on their benefactors moods,being able to grow healthy spiecies of rice solves the problem permanently.
- gnud 7y agoGM rice would also make sustenance farmers dependent on handouts, since they're not allowed to keep and re-plant seeds, but compelled to buy new seeds from the rights holders every season.
- makomk 7y agoThe free license for golden rice allows saving and replanting seed - thankfully big biotech wasn't quite that obviously evil in their big positive PR for GMOs act. The caveats are that doesn't cover imports and exports (all consumption must be within the country that grows it), and it only covers subsistence farmers and low-income food-deficit countries according to the FAO. As a general rule, food-deficit countries aren't going to be able to grow enough rice to supply the country because the definition literally requires they can't grow enough calories of food to feed their population. I'm not sure what hapens when a country loses its LIFD status or a farmer has a good year and makes over the threshold to grow it in other countries, but I presume it's not good for anyone except the company owning the patent rights.
- altacc 7y agoThen the problem to solve is the rights & IP. If farmers are allowed to re-plant seeds and future financial liabilities are removed, then GM becomes a great way of solving a lot of problems. Perhaps GM technology for farming should be considered a large scale problem best solved by public entities, with developments being open source & public domain.
- krageon 7y agoIf there is a patenting process someone might contest we can just set a timer for five years after acceptance and wait for the patent trolls to roll all over starving people. GM crops are great, but not as long as we can't guarantee this won't happen with a change to the system as a whole.
- sseveran 7y agoWhy would a patent troll sue a rice farmer with no money in a developing country?
- ClumsyPilot 7y agoIs the patent troll going to sue in Somalian court, or does he expect the guy to show up for court in US? I can't wait to see the proceedings.
- playeren 7y agoSame reason Monsanto sues farmers in India. Protecting IP. https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-seeds-of-suicide-how-monsanto-destroys-farming/5329947 https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-seeds-of-suicide-how-monsa...
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- aritmo 7y agoIt looks to me that the GM lobby is trying out a new strategy to promote GM crops, and this time it is "think of the children".
- sschueller 7y agoIt's not new. The story was alway: "We need GMO to eliminate starvation around the world". But somehow people are still starving and the industry is making more money. Why feed the hungry if you can make more profit selling GMO to those who already pay?
- Frondo 7y agoWe already produce enough food per capita world-wide for everyone on the planet to be morbidly obese. The problems are in distribution; they're political and logistical. That won't change until the people (both in the West and in nations with widespread food insufficiency) in charge start doing some things differently that people with wealth and power seldom decide to do on their own.
- safgasCVS 7y agoIts the same argument for weak encryption. Its always about the children.