Farmers and civil society organisations united in the Stop Golden Rice Alliance have reiterated their opposition to genetically modified (GM) rice, denouncing a campaign tour of a Canada-based advocacy group which is currently in the Philippines promoting the adoption of Golden Rice. According to the alliance, Golden Rice is a covert attempt to win wider approval for genetically modified food and will not solve the problem of malnutrition. Golden Rice has been genetically modified to provide beta-carotene, a precursor of Vitamin A, one of the essential micro-nutrients. The GM rice is being developed by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines in a public-private partnership with Syngenta. The lobby group “Allow Golden Rice Now!”, headed by Dr Patrick Moore, regards it as a silver-bullet solution to address Vitamin A deficiency in developing countries. The group will tour the Philippines, Bangladesh and India from March 4th to 20th, 2015. Filipino farmer-scientist group Masipag, a member of the network against Golden Rice, believe that GM rice will not solve hunger and malnutrition. “Micronutrient deficiencies are largely observed among children in poor families since they cannot afford a well-balanced diet. In that case, Golden Rice is not the solution; what is needed rather is peoples’ access to resources”, said Dr Chito Medina, National Coordinator of Masipag. He thinks that Golden Rice proponents “are merely using the malnutrition issue to sell their technology at the risk of the Filipino peoples’ health and the country’s agrobiodiversity”. The Stop Golden Rice Alliance warned in a press release that with inexpensive Vitamin A abundantly available from various natural sources, produced by small scale and backyard producers, it is a mistake to turn blindly to Golden Rice, a crop that IRRI itself admits it has not yet determined if it can actually improve the vitamin A intake. In 2014, IRRI announced that more research would be needed before Golden Rice can be commercialised due to its very low yield performance. The Stop Golden Rice Alliance stresses that the development of Golden Rice has already cost about 100 million U.S. dollars. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gave an additional $10.3 million grant on top to fund the further development. On the other hand, long standing Vitamin A supplementation programmes have already succeeded in reducing Vitamin A deficiency in many countries while being cost-effective and easy to implement. “We have many traditional food and crops that are rich in Vitamin A,” says Masipag farmer Virgie Nazareno. “We do not need Golden Rice, what we need is access to these nutritious and safe foods.” (ab)