Deeter And Ventri Opposition To Genetically Engineered Rice

Recently, delegates of famine stricken Southern African nations and representatives from the United States and the European Union came together to resolve issues regarding the acceptance of Genetically modified Food aid from the United States of America. Concerns and complications stemmed from humanitarian, economical, social and political grounds.

Ventria might propose to expand rice exportation to other countries which don’t have a negative reaction toward GM crops.

Those who support genetically modified foods strengthen their position by claiming a decent amount of benefits the biotechnology creates. Deborah B. Whitman, a master of biotechnology from The Johns Hopkins University, attended a Food and Drug Administration meeting held in November 1999 in Washington, D.C., that discussed many benefits involved in genetically modified foods. In his article Genetically Modified Foods: Harmful or Helpful?, he summarized how genetically modified foods are disease-resistant and can help in human’s nutrition. Well-grown genetically modified foods can alleviate nutrient deficiencies in third world countries where impoverished people rely on a single crop such as rice. Besides these benefits in health, genetically modified foods contain genes expressing herbicide tolerance and pest resistance, which help prevent environmental damage and reduce the production cost by reducing the amount of herbicides and pesticides needed. Our health and the environment are crucial components of our lives; they are what people have always been concerned about. Many people improve the quality of their lives by looking for and obtaining genetically modified products. If genetically modified crops did not actually offer improvements to people’s lives, the product's sales would decrease and lose popularity among consumers. Nevertheless, the opponents' concern of genetically modified food is right in regards to the chance

I strongly agree with Howard’s opinion that there is no way can help Ventria to stay in California. If they try to fight for approval, although their purpose of saving diarrhea infected children may influence the public’s decision, the catastrophic consequences of commingling of the genetically modified rice with traditional rice and the high profits of the genetically modified rice will result in most of people against them. Meanwhile, the use of the genetically modified rice is to treat diarrhea but very few children in United State are infected by this disease and most of diarrhea patients are in developing countries. Thus, it raise questions: Why do Ventria put United States in high risk to save children in Africa or Asia? Why don’t plant

After reading through the case and the opinions of rest of the team members I believe that Ventria would be better of relocating to a smaller rice growing state. That being said there will still be some arguments against their relocations. The state government of the other state may be reluctant to accept Ventria’s proposal too. So I believe they should grow these genetically modified plants in a more contained environment. By producing the rice in a more secluded setting with access to water and enough space to setup their own sewage or wastage system will help Ventria to convince the concerned government and its adversaries that the production of genetically modified rice would not affect the production of other crops. Another argument against

In this paper I am writing on the Ventria Bioscience and the Controversy over Plant-Made Medicines Case. Ventria Bioscience is a company that is trying to commercialize pharmaceuticals made from genetically modified plants. While Ventria is gaining opposition from regulators, activist, and environmentalist; they could succeed if they use their relevant stakeholders and specific strategies, information, financial incentive, constituency building, to influence regulators.

Deeter and Ventria are trying to get approval for commercializing pharmaceutical plants to produce medical proteins in rice. They are looking to expand beyond 50 acers to 120 in 2004. Therefore, they are subject to the CRC and Rice certification Act board. The first issue is outside critics. Per our text, the four advocacy organizations (friends of earth, center of food safety, the consumer union, and the environment California) produced a report addressing their concerns reporting to The California food and agriculture, The California EPA, California Health services and the public. The report stated that the first issue of concern was contamination of food rice. These groups do not want the rice that humans eat to be genetically altered by pharmaceutical rice. The contamination and cross polarization can occur by birds, insects, water fowl, and weather. Deeter and Ventria had no plans or protection to combat this issue. If these situations were to happen, they could cause hazardous human health issues. The consequences could be infections/diseases, allergies, stomach cancers, ulcers, resistance of digestion and immune system disorders and responses. The last issue addressed by this report was critical environmental consequences by accidentally cross-breading to produce a “super weed” promoting the spread of such.

(2009) Camaroff and Camaroff wrote about the commodification of culture and knowledge, this is equivalent to the appropriations occurring in India. Shiva demonstrates for millennia Indians have cultivated hundreds of species of rice. Yet, U.S. corporations have gained a patent on their intellectual property, engineered it, and now claim the new rice is substantially different (Siwach, Priyanka, et al. 25-32). In previous research, I found that corporations and the U.S. government simultaneously assert that the genetically modified rice remains enough like the original to resist testing for fitness of consumption. These same corporations are preventing farmers from saving and exchanging seeds and knowledge, and thereby causing a rift between the past and future of

This food crisis is consequently causing an increasing gap between the rich and poor. This gap includes the amount and quality of food that is being consumed. Along the way, a solution to produce the amount of food needed to serve the population was to use Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). With the growing signs and evidence of the risk that GMOs bring, people have a right to know what is in the food that they are eating. Through conflict theory we can identify that the elite deter us from educating ourselves on the truth of what we are eating and make it almost impossible to change Genetically Modified Food (GMF).

To think that Monsanto practically owns the soy bean industry is crazy. Farmers who have no other choice than to use Monsanto’s seeds have almost no say when it comes to the process of growing crops. Towards the end of this documentary one of the farms refused to use Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds. He then found himself in a long legal battle that could result in him paying a fine or shutting down him farm all together.

Normal rice plants can be submerged for a few days and still survive, but flooding can persist for a little more than 2 weeks. At the International Rice Research Institution they proved that genetically modified rice can survive being submerged in water for 15-18 days. They compared the genetically engineered rice and the natural rice during a flood. They are equally healthy at the beginning, but once the flood hit and continued to stay the natural plant diminished. Once the flood had ended the natural rice still had some to harvest, but the GMO had three times the yield. There are people who believe there are no benefits in GMOs, but the fact is they could save rice farmers from having to live off of one dollar a

Scott Deeter and Ventria faced many problems over the controversy over plant-made medicines. There are many regulations that control farmed pharmaceuticals. There is the FDA, GRAS, EPA, and the USDA that all have requirements that companies such as Ventria must abide by. In addition to the list of regulations that must be followed, companies must also indirectly make sure the local rice industry approved of the new techniques. People fear things that they don’t understand. They feared the crops would cross contaminate and pollute the state. They weren’t sure of all of the risks, involved in their industry. According to the text, in the early 2,000’s the FDA basically created standard that was directed toward pharmaceutical crops and food crops

For the last several decades, the world has been plagued by widespread starvation and poverty. Economies are failing in numerous countries, and developing nations struggle to feed their inhabitants. As a result of the world’s mounting overpopulation, food has become scarce and resources are rapidly dwindling. However, modern science has provided a solution: agricultural biotechnology. Genetically engineered crops represent the bright future of agriculture. Crops like cotton, corn, and soybeans can have genes inserted or deleted into their cell membranes; this modification facilitates pest and virus resistance, drought tolerance, and even provides nutritional enhancement. Genetically altered crops produce much higher

Additionally, big business controls the farmers by capitalizing on widely used commodities. For example, the company Monsanto which is based in St. Louis, Missouri protects its dominance over the genetically modified crops such as the soy bean with the use of a patent law. Because of this, Monsanto’s patented genes “account for 95 percent of all soy beans and 80 percent of all corn grown in the U.S.,” (Associated Press). Although genetically modifying the soy bean crop has made it more readily available and more sustainable, this comes at a high price to farmers. Monsanto continues to raise their prices, which forces farmers to accrue even more debt, and there is no sign of the rise in the seed prices stopping. Since a lot of the farmers are under contract with Monsanto, there is nothing they can do about this unethical policy in fear of losing their job.

"Golden Rice" has been developed by scientists to combat vitamin A deficiency, which affects millions of children in the developing worlds. However, as a precautionary means, the crop was offered to the authorities for a safety evaluation which was interrupted when a group of around 400 protestors attacked the field trial in the Bicol region and uprooted all the GM plants. The project, initially started 20 years ago by German researchers with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, relied on modifying the rice through the addition of additional genes that produce beta-carotene, which is converted into vitamin A in the digestive process. Vitamin A deficiency is a significant problem in developing countries, which is why golden rice provides such an attractive solution to prevent unnecessary defects and death, especially among younger populations. Yet, farmers from the Philippines are avidly rejecting this crop option because of fears of damage it may cause, while also arguing that they have other solutions for the Vitamin A deficiency problem. However, the “Allow Golden Rice Now!” campaign is led by Dr. Patrick Moore, and aims to convince government officials and the Filipino people to accept Golden Rice as a nutritional and needed addition to their daily diet, with an emphasis on GM rice serving as a much needed golden bullet.