Global campaign for 'golden rice'

A global campaign that supports the genetically modified "golden rice" and promotes the cause for fighting child mortality entered Bangladesh yesterday as part of its three-nation Asia tour.

The campaign -- Allow Golden Rice Now -- is being spearheaded by a man who happens to be a convert from the world's biggest anti-GMO (genetically modified organism) lobby -- Greenpeace.

“If golden rice were a cure for cancer, malaria, or Ebola, it would have been approved 10 years ago. In that time, 20 million people, mostly children, have died. This is a crime against humanity,” said Patrick Moore, the campaign head and a Canadian ecologist, at a press briefing in Dhaka yesterday.

Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace and an ex-director of the world's largest green group, left Greenpeace as he considered its positions on various issues unscientific.

In 2013, along with his brother Michael Moore, he founded the Allow Golden Rice Society -- a non-profit organisation dedicated to seeing golden rice approved for commercial agriculture.

Golden rice is a genetically modified rice variety capable of fighting child mortality and blindness caused by vitamin A deficiency. The rice is infused with vitamin A producing beta carotene taken from maize.

Along with Manila-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Bangladesh is now at the forefront in developing golden rice. However, crops derived through agricultural biotechnology and genetic engineering are often met with opposition from the anti-GMO lobbies.

The Allow Golden Rice Now campaign that began on March 4 will run in Bangladesh for four days and tour the Philippines and India up to March 20, as these are the few countries where vitamin A deficiency is a major cause of child mortality.

"Two million children and many mothers die each year from a lack of this essential vitamin. It is the greatest cause of child death today. Golden rice is the obvious cure, but because it was created with genetic science, Greenpeace and the anti-GMO movement fervently oppose it," Moore said.

On August 8, 2013, Greenpeace instigated the destruction of golden rice scientific field trials at the IRRI in the Philippines. The Allow Golden Rice Society is actively campaigning for the approval of the rice so it can be delivered to the 200 million children who are deficient in vitamin A.

“All we ask is that Greenpeace and their allies make an exception for golden rice in their opposition to GM crops,” he said. “Millions of lives are at stake.”

The members of the Golden Rice South Asia Tour also include Horst Rehberger, a senior German politician; Uwe Schrader, a German expert in biotechnology, and Hans-Jörg Jacobsen, a German heading Plant Biotechnology at the Institute of Plant Genetics of Leibniz University in Hanover.

“I want to seek solutions to different problems and not just oppose one thing or the other," Moore told The Daily Star. 

He deplored that some 250,000 to 500,000 vitamin A-deficient children become blind every year, half of them dying within 12 months of losing their sight. "This tragedy can be eliminated with golden rice… but has been blocked by Greenpeace for over a decade. During that time over eight million children have gone blind and then died."

Moore and his campaign team lauded Bangladesh for being the first among all Asian nations in introducing GM vegetable - Bt Brinjal. "We will see Bt Brinjal fields on Friday," Moore said, adding that they also sought to meet Bangladesh's agriculture minister on Thursday.