Filipino rice farmers claim that national heritage sites like the 2,000-year-old Ifugao Rice Terraces are threatened by the looming presence of genetically modified crops. Credit: Courtesy Diana Mendoza

By Diana Mendoza
MANILA, Nov 26 2014 (IPS)

Jon Sarmiento, a farmer in the Cavite province in southern Manila, plants a variety of fruits and vegetables, but his main crop, rice, is under threat. He claims that approval by the Philippine government of the genetically modified ‘golden rice’ that is fortified with beta-carotene, which the body converts into vitamin A, could ruin his livelihood.

Sarmiento, who is also the sustainable agriculture programme officer of PAKISAMA, a national movement of farmers’ organisations, told IPS, “Genetically modified rice will not address the lack of vitamin A, as there are already many other sources of this nutrient. It will worsen hunger. It will also kill diversification and contaminate other crops.”

Sarmiento aired his sentiments during a protest activity last week in front of the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI), an office under the Department of Agriculture, during which farmers unfurled a huge canvas depicting a three-dimensional illustration of the Banaue Rice Terraces in Ifugao province in the northern part of the Philippines.

“We challenge the government to walk the talk and ‘Be RICEponsible’." -- Jon Sarmiento, a farmer in the Cavite province in southern Manila
Considered by Filipinos as the eighth wonder of the world, the 2,000-year-old Ifugao Rice Terraces represent the country’s rich rice heritage, which some say will be at stake once the golden rice is approved.

The protesting farmers also delivered to the BPI, which is responsible for the development of plant industries and crop production and protection, an ‘extraordinary opposition’ petition against any extension, renewal or issuance of a new bio-safety permit for further field testing, feeding trials or commercialisation of golden rice.

“We challenge the government to walk the talk and ‘Be RICEponsible’,” Sarmiento said, echoing the theme of a national advocacy campaign aimed at cultivating rice self-sufficiency in the Philippines.

Currently, this Southeast Asian nation of 100 million people is the eighth largest rice producer in the world, accounting for 2.8 percent of global rice production, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).

But it was also the world’s largest rice importer in 2010, largely because the Philippines’ area of harvested rice is very small compared with other major rice-producing countries in Asia.

In addition to lacking sufficient land resources to produce its total rice requirement, the Philippines is devastated by at least 20 typhoons every year that destroy crops, the FAO said.

However, insufficient output is not the only thing driving research and development on rice.

A far greater concern for scientists and policy-makers is turning the staple food into a greater source of nutrition for the population. The government and independent research institutes are particularly concerned about nutrition deficiencies that cause malnutrition, especially among poorer communities.

According to the Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), “Vitamin A deficiency remains a public health problem in the country, affecting more than 1.7 million children under the age of five and 500,000 pregnant and nursing women.”

The vast majority of those affected live in remote areas, cut off from access to government nutrition programmes. The IRRI estimates that guaranteeing these isolated communities sufficient doses of vitamin A could reduce child mortality here by 23-34 percent.

Such thinking has provided the impetus for continued research and development on genetically modified rice, despite numerous protests including a highly publicised incident in August last year in which hundreds of activists entered a government test field and uprooted saplings of the controversial golden rice crop.

While scientists forge ahead with their tests, protests appear to be heating up, spurred on by a growing global movement against GMOs.

Last week’s public action – which received support from Greenpeace Southeast Asia and included farmers’ groups, organic traders and consumers, mothers and environmentalists – denounced the government’s continuing research on golden rice and field testing, as well as the distribution and cropping of genetically-modified corn and eggplant.

Monica Geaga, another protesting farmer who is from the group SARILAYA, an organisation of female organic farmers from the rice-producing provinces in the main island of Luzon, said women suffer multiple burdens when crops are subjected to genetic modification.

“It is a form of harassment and violence against women who are not just farmers but are also consumers and mothers who manage households and the health and nutrition of their families,” she told IPS.

Geaga said she believes that if plants are altered from their natural state, they release toxins that are harmful to human health.

Protestors urged the government to shield the country’s rice varieties from contamination by genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and instead channel the money for rice research into protecting the country’s biodiversity and rich cultural heritage while ensuring ecological agricultural balance.

Though there is a dearth of hard data on how much the Philippine government has spent on GMO research, the Biotechnology Coalition of the Philippines estimates that the government and its multinational partner companies have spent an estimated 2.6 million dollars developing GM corn alone.

Furthermore, activists and scientists say GMOs violate the National Organic Law that supports the propagation of rice varieties that already possess multi-nutrients such as carbohydrates, minerals, fibre, and potassium, according to the Philippines’ National Nutrition Council (NNC).

The NNC also said other rice varieties traditionally produced in the Philippines such as brown, red, and purple rice contain these nutrients.

Danilo Ocampo, ecological agriculture campaigner for Greenpeace Philippines, said the “flawed regulatory system” in the BPI, the sole government agency in charge of GMO approvals, “has led to approvals of all GMO applications without regard to their long-term impact on the environment and human health.”

“The problem with the current regulatory system is that there is no administrative remedy available to farmers once contamination happens. It is also frustrating that consumers and the larger populace are not given the chance to participate in GM regulation,” said Ocampo.

“It is high time that we exercise our right to participate and be part of a regulatory system that affects our food, our health and our future,” he asserted.

Greenpeace explained in statements released to the media that aside from the lack of scientific consensus on the safety of GMOs on human health and the environment, they also threaten the country’s rich biodiversity.

Greenpeace Philippines said genetically modified crops such as corn or rice contain built-in pesticides that can be toxic, and their ability to cross-breed and cross-pollinate other natural crops can happen in an open environment, which cannot be contained.

Last week saw farmer activists in other cities in the Philippines stage protest actions that called on the government to protect the country’s diverse varieties of rice and crops and stop GMO research and field-testing.

In Davao City south of Manila, stakeholders held the 11th National Organic Agriculture Congress. In Cebu City, also south of Manila, farmers protested the contamination of corn, their second staple food, and gathered petitions supporting the call against the commercial approval of golden rice.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which works to end malnutrition among more than two billion people worldwide, is expressing strong support  for enriching the micronutrient content of plants.

Cassava is a staple crop in Africa. The new variety promoted by CGIAR is more nutritious, contaning higher amounts of vitamin A, zinc, or iron. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

In technical terms, it is called biofortification: a nutrition-specific intervention designed to enhance the micronutrient content of foods through the use of agronomic practices and plant breeding.

The breeding is taking place at HarvestPlus, an international programme supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and at national agricultural research centres, mostly in developing countries.

The first nutritious crop, developed by African scientists and released in partnership with the Internal Potato Center (CIP), was the orange sweet potato, which has been effective in providing up to 100 percent of daily vitamin A needs for young children, according to CGIAR.

Six additional nutritious crops are now being developed through the use of conventional breeding methods: vitamin A-rich cassava and maize, iron-rich beans and pearl millet, and zinc-rich wheat and rice.

The first three crops are targeted to Africa and the rest to South Asia.

New varieties of the first four crops were launched in 2012, says CGIAR, with wheat and rice expected to follow later this year.

While it takes time to produce the amount of seed necessary to meet demand, up to half a million farmers will be growing these nutritious crops by year end, it predicts.

Asked how far plant breeding can go in resolving hunger and nutrition problems worldwide, Dr. Erick Boy, head of nutrition at HarvestPlus, told IPS, “Our focus is on hidden hunger, caused by not getting enough minerals and vitamins in the diet – that is the major hunger problem the world faces today.

“The six new varieties of staple crops we are developing are more nutritious—they contain higher amounts of vitamin A, zinc, or iron,” he added.

Lack of these nutrients is what causes widespread suffering and health problems, especially for women and children.

Boy said these crops will be distributed to more than three million farming households in seven countries in Africa and Asia by 2015.

“Not bad for a programme that started from scratch to develop these crops beginning only in 2003,” he noted.

When eaten regularly, these nutritious crops could provide on average 50 percent of vitamin A, zinc, or iron requirements. According to CGIAR, more than two billion people worldwide do not get enough of these crucial nutrients in their diets.

Deficiencies can lead to lower IQ, stunting, and blindness in children; increased susceptibility to disease for both children and adults; and higher health risks to mothers – and their infants – during childbirth.

According to the World Bank, malnourished children are more likely to drop out of school and have lower incomes as adults, thus reducing overall economic growth.

In its latest annual flagship publication The State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) released here, FAO explains that unlike food fortification, which occurs during food processing, biofortification involves enriching the micronutrient content of plants.

Questions remain about the readiness of consumers to purchase biofortified foods, especially when they look or taste different from traditional varieties. But, FAO says, early evidence suggests that consumers are willing to buy them and may even pay a premium.

In Uganda, FAO discovered consumers were willing to pay as much for the orange-fleshed varieties of sweet potato as for the white varieties, even in the absence of a promotional campaign.

Similar results were found for nutritionally-enhanced orange maize in Zambia, where consumers did not confuse it with ordinary yellow or white maize. They were also willing to pay a premium when its introduction was accompanied by nutrition information.

Asked why the project targets Asia and Africa and not Latin America, CGIAR’s Dr. Boy said, “Our focus is on subSaharan Africa and South Asia because if you look at any map of hidden hunger, these are the regions marked in red.”

Latin American countries have done a better job of improving nutrition over the past two decades, he added. There are still, however, pockets where hidden hunger is a problem.

“So we are also working in this region. In fact, I am in Guatemala now to work with stakeholders to buy in to our high-iron beans and high zinc-maize initiative there. We anticipate that we could have varieties of two to three crops that are rich in iron and zinc to LAC farmers by 2015,” Boy added.

Meanwhile, in early June, the UK government granted £30 million [46.4 million dollars] to HarvestPlus to develop and deliver six nutritious crops to several million farming households in Africa and Asia.

The grant was announced at a high-level international meeting in London that brought together a range of partners to make strong political and financial commitments to improve nutrition globally.

In his opening remarks, British Prime Minister David Cameron said, “It has to be about doing things differently…For science, it’s about harnessing the power of innovation to develop better seeds, [and] more productive and nutritious crops.”

Children living on Sri Lanka's tea estates are among the country's most malnourished. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

By Justine Leone
BRUSSELS, Nov 26 2012 (IPS)

One hundred and ninety million – that’s more than the populations of Germany, France and Poland combined. It is also the number of children affected by vitamin A deficiency around the world.

An insufficient intake of this vital nutrient – found in foods like liver, carrots and kale – can be fatal and causes blindness in 250,000 to 500,000 children every year.

One hundred years after Polish scientist Casimir Funk formulated the concept of vitamins, substantial progress has been made in promoting awareness that proper nutrition is vital to health.

Yet much remains to be done, especially in the developing world, to spread awareness that simply solving the problem of hunger does not necessarily tackle the question of nutrition. Currently, 7.3 percent of the global health burden is caused by vitamin and nutrient deficiency.

Poverty is the leading cause of many vitamin deficiencies, especially vitamin A. Much of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa is affected by severe cases of vitamin A deficiency – since many diets in this part of the world include only staples. For instance, rice can represent up to 70 percent of caloric intake in many Asian countries, while cassava – rich in calories but poor in nutrients – is the main food source for many Africans.

In contrast to other countries in South Asia, such as Bangladesh and Nepal, India has been slow to tackle vitamin A deficiency. As a result, India represents 37 percent of victims, including roughly 80 million children.

Dr. Klaus Kraemer of Sight and Life, a Swiss nutrition advocacy group, laments this lack of focus. “The World Health Organisation recommends two to three doses of vitamin A per year for children under the age of five years. This is based on scientific evidence indicating a mortality reduction of 24 percent.

“It is tragic that India is lagging behind in implementing this guideline, resulting in needless child deaths,” he said.

Dr. Shilpa Vinod Bhatte, a medical professional based in Mumbai, told IPS that the Indian problem is partly due to local diets: “Hidden hunger and vitamin A deficiency in India is not just due to poverty but a lack of knowledge about the nutritive value of foods that need to be consumed to maintain good health – most diets of children under-five only consist of corn or rice or wheat porridge.”

Still, there are signs that the trend is changing, largely due to a renewed push by development practitioners around the world to tackle the problem.

The Copenhagen Consensus 2012 Expert Panel of top global economists assessed the most effective ways of allocating funds to address the world’s toughest challenges, and reported that “bundled micronutrient interventions” should be the top priority for investments in global health and development.

One of the participants, Nobel laureate economist Vernon Smith, explained, “One of the most compelling investments is to get nutrients to the world’s undernourished. The benefits from doing so – in terms of increased health, schooling, and productivity – are tremendous.”

Indeed, the estimate put forward by the Copenhagen Consensus is a 17-fold return on every dollar spent.

Achieving the MDGs

Experts argue these benefits should be seen in the light of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), targets agreed upon by all U.N. member states in 2000 to tackle extreme poverty and improve lives.

The most recent U.N. scorecard showed that hunger and malnutrition rates are still abysmally high.

In particular, sub-Saharan Africa is experiencing very high levels of hunger – in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Eritrea, over 60 percent of the population was listed as “undernourished”.

The U.N. and national governments provide vitamin A capsules equivalent to the needs of 390 million of the 540 million children with deficiencies, but a lack of coordinated action has left millions outside the scope of these efforts.

Now, the private sector has stepped in to fill the breach, providing supplements and helping to build capacity.

DSM – a global leader in vitamins, with headquarters in the Netherlands – has teamed up with organisations such as the World Food Programme (WFP), the World Bank, and the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), as well as charities like Vitamin Angels, to provide vital vitamins and nutrients to poor communities.

Renu Devi, of Bagwanpur Rati village in India’s Bihar state, with her children who take the Vitamin A doses. Credit: Sujoy Dhar/IPS

DSM provides direct financial support – one million dollars for rice fortification in 2012 alone – as well as capsules, powders, technical expertise and logistical resources.

“Vitamin Angels supports more than 100 NGOs in high-risk Indian states who help us reach close to three million children under five years at risk of going blind or dying due to vitamin A deficiency,” explained Bhatte.

Vitamin Angels, alongside Sight and Life and DSM, also works in communities across India to engage stakeholders on the ground, from NGOs and local governments to community leaders, to formulate long-term goals such as working through local institutions to set up a sustainable vitamin A distribution system.

Already, there are tangible results. Private contributions could push the number of children with access to Vitamin A capsules to 50 million by the close of 2013. These joint efforts are currently meeting approximately 17 percent of the unmet global demand.

Private sector efforts have nudged the European Union and its member states to spotlight the problem as a crucial development issue. At a recent conference on development, the European Commission’s Francesca Mosca explained, “It is unbearable that so many children are dying from malnutrition. The time to act is yesterday, not tomorrow.”

Mosca rightly pointed out that some efforts have started to bear fruit, based on a successful public-private partnership model. “We have been extremely involved in the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement”, a country-led initiative launched in 2010 to increase the efficacy of existing programmes. “I think it was the first time that all the actors came together: private sector, public sector, donors and partner countries.”

Paulus Verschuren, the Dutch Government’s Special Envoy on food and nutrition security for development, speaking at the same event, stressed, “The (period) of a child’s life during which we can intervene is very short. Children’s futures depend on nutrition… it’s really a moment that we can’t afford to miss.”

Nutrition plays a role in achieving almost every MDG – its impact on child health, for instance, could also boost the number of children attending school, promote gender equality by empowering women to take a more active role in their children’s health, and also improve maternal health, thereby reducing the maternal mortality ratio.

(END)