GM free rice

Thailand and Vietnam go GM free

 

Following on from news last week that Organic food imports to the UK are on the rise, Thailand and Vietnam this week issued a Memorandum of Understanding committing to producing GM-free rice only. This follows recent contamination of aid to West Africa where a Friends of the Earth investigation led to the revelation that a strain of GM rice that has not been authorised for human consumption has entered the food chain there.

There are increasing fears that GM contamination of food sources is being carried out on a large scale by the US and China. Nnimmo Bassey of Friends of the Earth Africa said "We cannot accept a situation when food aid becomes a secret channel to ambush our peoples with illegal genetically modified food. We refuse to be used as guinea pigs in big business's experimentations"

The decision by Thailand and Vietnam who account together for half of all globally traded rice has been welcomed by Jeremy Tager from Greenpeace International "This announcement from the biggest rice exporters occurred after massive backlash against the GE (genetically engineered) industry following the recent scandals where illegal and unapproved GE rice varieties from the US and China contaminated the global rice supply."

 

 


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