>DEBATE HEATS UP OVER  HIGH-TECH RICE RESEARCH
>
>QUEZON CITY (PNF, Mar 24) - Breeding new types of rice through genetic
>engineering will be high in the agenda of a coming meeting of about 200 rice
>scientists and researchers from around the world gathering in the
>Philippines later this month.
>
>Yet the genetic method of creating new rice strains remains controversial,
>even objectionable, to certain groups who are worried that kind of research
>is producing deadly strains, instead.
>
>The debate is expected to heat up as the International Rice Research
>Conference (IRRC) is held at Los Baņos, Laguna, from March 31 to April 3,
>where scientists are expected to discuss, among others, research updates on
>what are sometimes called super-hybrids. These are rice strains
>artificially-developed to show desirable characteristics, such as greater
>pest resistance.
>
>"We desperately need cutting-edge science and technology if we are going to
>be able to continue to successfully address the challenges of food security
>and poverty alleviation in the new millennium," said Dr. Ronald P. Cantrell,
>director general of the Los Baņos-based International Rice Research
>Institute (IRRI), conference host.
>
>Farmers have to produce 40 to 50 percent more (and better) rice to meet
>consumer demand in 2025, said IRRI crop physiologist Dr. Shaobing Peng, in a
>press release. Thus, rice has to be produced increasingly through methods
>using less land, less water, less labor, and fewer chemicals, Peng said.
>Scientists, he added, "must develop rice varieties with higher yield
>potential, durable resistance to diseases and insects, and tolerance for
>abiotic stresses."
>
>But, these scientists' work are sometimes met with fear and skepticism by
>others. Grain, a non-government organization that promotes local control
>over biodiversity, said in a recent release that genetically manipulating
>rice breeds to solve Vitamin A deficiency in the Philippines, for example,
>is a "flawed" approach.
>
>"Golden rice," a new type of rice genetically-engineered to contain vitamin
>A, will not help at all, said a Grain briefing paper, entitled Engineering
>Solutions to Malnutrition. Grain said this is so because deficiency in the
>vitamin happens as a result of general malnutrition, poverty, and
>environmental degradation. None of this is addressed by the "golden rice,"
>Grain said.
>
>"Golden rice" is also tangled up in corporate patents, which could hamper
>its availability to the poor people. The Grain report says the best way to
>solve vitamin-A deficiency among Filipinos is to allow consumers a diverse
>diet, which can happen if farmers are urged to plant a wide range of food
>crops.
>
>Vitamin A and other necessary nutrients may be found from local varieties of
>green leafy vegetables, and people need only to be free to grow them, and
>urged to include them in their diet, said Grain.
>
>On the other hand, genetic engineering poses unknown threats to local
>biodiversity, and "golden rice" is part of the problem, not the solution, it
>said. # PNF
>
>PHILIPPINE NEWS & FEATURES
>24 March 2000
>