LETTER TO THE EDITOR:

NO NEED FOR GM RICE

Sir: Greenpeace is right to be sceptical about golden rice (letter, 17 February). Last month I visited Social Change and Development, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in Tamil Nadu, south India. They work with more than 300 villages and have eradicated problems of night blindness in children, brought on by vitamin A deficiency, and anaemia with women, both of which had been endemic in the area.

These health problems had become an issue because of the simplified diet associated with the Agrochemical (Green) Revolution. They were problems well known to traditional "health science", known in Tamil Nadu as siddha. For vitamin A the NGO trains villagers to grow and eat papaya, pumpkins, carrots and other yellow vegetables. For iron deficiency, which causes anaemia, they use aloes, a hedging plant. All of these grow easily and cost virtually nothing.

The NGO had not heard of "golden rice", genetically modified to include vitamin A, but said that it represented a step in the wrong direction. A specialist rice would reduce crop diversity and make villagers dependent on purchasing seed. Anyway siddha treats nutrition on a wider basis than single- issue vitamins.

JAMES BRUGES
Bristol

Source: The Independent (London) February 23, 2001, Friday