In an article by Sean Poulter he said the first GM rice crop with the human gene has been approved for commercial production. The rice produces some of the proteins found in breast milk and saliva. The company, Ventria Bioscience, has been given approval to plant 3,000 acres of GM rice (Baby Rice - my name for the product...lol) in Kansas and plans to harvest the rice to extract the protein for use in various products like drinks, yogurt and muesli bars. Many groups are coming forward voicing concern. Some groups include: GeneWatch UK, Friends of the Earth, Union of Concerned Scientists, American Consumers Union, and Center for Food Safety. These groups are concerned about the ethical nature of GM foods, the safety of the rice for public consumption and the risk of cross contamination with other crops.
Scott Deeter, the Chief Executive of Ventria Bioscience, said the fear of the various groups who spoke out against the project is, "based on perception and not reality." I suggest Mr. Deeter that you do your homework. There is plenty of good reason to fear. I recently wrote an essay for my master's class on this particular subject. Please feel free to read and understand why so many people are concerned about GM foods.
Jonathan Rauch (2011) introduces the
reader to “frankenfood.” Frankenfood is the term Rauch (2011)
uses for genetically modified (GM) food. GM food has several benefits
for mankind. One benefit has been increasing yield and reducing the
amount of new land cleared for farming since the same plot of land
can produce more bushels of food (Rauch, 2011). Another advance is
being able to use a no-till method to reduce the damage to the soil
and help prevent run-off and erosion (Rauch, 2011). The ability of
GM seed to be planted in areas that have a high salinity content will
help in arid open up arid regions for food production (Rauch, 2011).
GM crops can also be modified to have increased nutritional content,
produce new plant stains with that are disease resistant, and shorten
grow time to increase the ability to make more food in one season
(USDE, 2005).
There are a lot of potential benefits to GM crops and in 2006
about 250 million acres of GM crops were planted and harvested but
people are concerned over the use of GM crops are doing to the health
of man, food animals and the environment (USDE, 2005). I just
recently watched a documentary called Food, Inc. directed by Robert
Kenner (2008) and it exposed how fast food chains have changed the
way we all eat. It told how fast food chains buy 70% of all
consumable food crops being produced in the United States (Kenner,
2008). The film spends time talking about farmers and their need to
buy soybean seeds from Monsanto that have been genetically modified
to be Round-Up ready (a powerful pesticide) (Kenner, 2008). The
spraying and growing of the new genetically modified soybeans is now
being linked to cow deaths, spontaneous abortions of calves and the
possible outbreak of a new fungal crop disease that could potentially
result in the collapse of the soy and corn market in the United
States (ISIS, 2011). So we may have all ready created what Ho (2011)
was concerned about, a virus (fungi) that we do not know how to treat
by way of “horizontal gene transfer.”
Rauch, J. (2011). Can Frankenfood Save the Planet? In Louis P. Pojman & Paul Pojman (Eds.)
Environmental Ethics: Readings intheory and applications (6thed.)(p. 271 - 278). Boston, MA: Wadsworth.
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