Environmental Activists Opposed to Improving Rice Nutrition

By Dr. Stuart Smyth

In late July 2021, the Philippines became the first country on the planet to approve Golden Rice for production and human consumption. Twenty years ago when the Golden Rice technology was licensed to Syngenta, the approval for production and consumption was expected to occur within a handful of years. It was widely thought that Golden Rice would be providing humans with increased Vitamin A by 2005. Regrettably, the 16 years of delays are based entirely on politics and the leading environmental activist organization opposed to Golden Rice has been Greenpeace. The comment below was sent to me by an individual who listened to a Greenpeace activist being interviewed. The comment speaks to how much misinformation there is about Golden Rice and how groups like Greenpeace are not advocating with the knowledge that is truthful.

Let’s get one thing straight

Monsanto doesn’t, and never has owned Golden Rice. Golden Rice has been developed by the International Rice Research Institute, an international and publicly-funded research center located in the Philippines. Roughly over 70 patents previously existed regarding aspects of Golden Rice technology and IRRI, along with assistance from the Rockefeller Foundation, were able to negotiate free licensing for all of the patents.

The reasoning of Golden Rice

The devastating reality of Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is that globally, 124 million children are deficient,