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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Thursday, 1 July 2004) . . Page.. 3226 ..

of the points raised by particularly Mrs Dunne and Mr Pratt, who decided to go wider in their presentations and talk about what they perceive to be the potential benefits of genetic modification for the production of food.

I would also like to respond to their assertions that people who are expressing concern about the haste with which this technology has been embraced are somehow fearful and even loathing—Mrs Dunne used quite strong language—of the unknown or afraid of innovation. I think it is important to make the point that an understanding of the precautionary principle is not about a loathing of the unknown: it is about understanding that we have to take responsibility for what we are doing.

Mr Pratt referred to an article or a letter he had read in The Land, and spoke about the lack of qualifications held by people who expressed concerns about this particular technology. He also talked about golden rice and vitamin A deficiency, so I thought I might just fill him in a little bit on that.

Just on the general question of biotechnology being a high tech cure for the woes of the world’s people who are poor, I remember in the 70s there was a sticker around with the words “Food for people, not for profit.” That is basically still the problem. Feeding the world is not about production and distribution; it is about political will and financial will. Mrs Dunne and Mr Pratt alluded to developing countries. In this respect, the Christian Aid report on biotechnology and GMOs stated:

Biotechnology and GM crops are taking us down a dangerous road, creating the classic conditions for hunger, poverty and even famine. Ownership and control concentrated in too few hands—

Mrs Dunne mentioned Monsanto and Bayer several times—

and a food supply based on too few varieties planted widely are the worst option for food security.

Golden rice is produced by splicing three foreign genes—two from the daffodil and one from a bacterium—into japonica rice, which is a variety adapted for temperate climates. The developers anticipate that at least five more years will be required to breed the vitamin A trait into rice varieties.

It is quite clear that, even if golden rice is successfully introduced, it will likely do little to ameliorate VAD—the condition that is apparently going to be helped by golden rice. VAD is a condition that afflicts millions of people in developing countries, especially children and pregnant women. As explained by Mr Pratt, it causes partial or total blindness. But if golden rice is successfully introduced—and we are certainly not at that point—it will not do that much to ameliorate VAD because it produces so little beta carotene—just 1.6 micrograms per gram of rice at present, with a goal of 2.0 µg/g. Even if scientists reach this goal, a woman would need to eat 16 pounds of cooked rice every day in order to get sufficient vitamin A, if golden rice were her only source of the nutrient. A child would need 12 pounds.

More realistically, three servings of half a pound of cooked golden rice per day would provide only 10 per cent of her daily vitamin A requirement and less than six per cent if she were breastfeeding. Yet even these modest contributions are uncertain. In order to

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