Farmers who promise customers that their products are free from biotech tampering would lose out, as would biological diversity in general. There are some 140,000 varieties of rice that have been created by farmers in Asia, many thousands of them in Taiwan. Outcropping contamination would only reduce that number.
There are fears that farmers could lose out in other ways, as well. The non-profit organization ActionAid released a study in 2001 stating that, of 250 patents on rice, 61 percent were owned by one of six multi-national seed companies. Three of those companies are also the world's biggest makers of pesticides and herbicides.
ActionAid speculated that, through patents and contracts, those companies might seek to change traditional farming practices or even assert intellectual property ownership over the harvested rice. Finally, there is even a debate as to whether GM crops provide their promised benefits.
A study by Greenpeace showed that for a person to get their daily requirement of vitamin A from Golden rice, they'd have to eat 3.7kg of the rice each day.
"A normal daily intake of 300g of rice would, at best, provide 8 percent of vitamin A needed daily," according to the report.
A second generation of the strain, Golden rice 2, promises 23 times more beta carotene, but has yet to undergo clinical testing.
CONSUMER CONCERNS
Jason Lee (
"Currently, the government only requires that packaged corn and soybeans be labeled," he said.
"But soy and corn products purchased in traditional markets aren't labeled."
His foundation is calling for clearer labeling of GM foods and more stringent standards.
According to Department of Health guidelines, GM soybean oil, corn oil, corn starch and corn syrup do not need to be labeled. And on those products where labeling is required, "genetically modified" (基因改造) must be printed in a font with a width and length "not less than 2mm" -- a limit that is rarely strayed from, as genetic modification is hardly seen as a selling point.
"People need to be aware of what they're eating,"Lee said.
"It's not only warning people about genetically modified foods, but getting them to question if this is something they want to be eating."
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