Nothing golden about ‘railroading’ golden rice distribution: MASIPAG
Published on: April 11, 2022.
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Farmer-scientist group Magsasaka at Siyentipiko para sa Pag-unlad ng Agrikultura (MASIPAG) slammed agriculture secretary William Dar for “railroading” golden rice (GR) distribution in the Philippines.
“[…] this kind of attitude that William Dar and the Department of Agriculture (DA) has been showing is a living testament that their priority is profit and welfare of philanthro-capitalists, agro-chemical corporations, and the United States Government,” MASIPAG National Coordinator Alfie Pulumbarit slammed in a Friday (April 8) statement, comparing the development to outgoing Pres. Rodrigo Duterte’s neoliberal policies such as the hotly contested 100% foreign ownership of foreign utilities.
The fruit of a collaboration between IRRI and the agricultural company Syngenta, GR is a genetically-modified rice originally meant to be a remedy for vitamin A deficiency (VAD). The World Health Organization said that consequences include night blindness, heightened vulnerability to infections, and complications in lactation and pregnancy.
In an event by the United States Department of Agriculture last Thursday (April 7), the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) announced that the National Seed Industry Council (NSIC) has approved GR for varietal registration.
Good intentions aside, critics such as MASIPAG, the Stop Golden Rice Network (SGRN), as well as farmer groups have long lamented the possible environmental and economic damage that may come from popularizing GR in the Philippines.
Ex-MASIPAG National Coordinator Cris Panerio questioned the swiftness of NSIC’s approval, saying that “it’s highly suspicious that the approval of NSIC to golden rice’s varietal registration has been this ridiculously quick despite the pending appeal to revoke its biosafety permits that we filed in the Department of Agriculture and the undeniable wide public opposition to its implementation.”
