{"id":873,"date":"2011-06-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-06-01T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/master.k8s.p4.greenpeace.org\/southeastasia\/press\/873\/ge-free-rice-policy-a-celebration-for-farmers-and-consumers-in-southeast-asia\/"},"modified":"2024-05-28T17:25:40","modified_gmt":"2024-05-28T10:25:40","slug":"ge-free-rice-policy-a-celebration-for-farmers-and-consumers-in-southeast-asia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/southeastasia\/story\/873\/ge-free-rice-policy-a-celebration-for-farmers-and-consumers-in-southeast-asia\/","title":{"rendered":"GE-Free Rice Policy: A celebration for farmers and consumers in Southeast Asia!"},"content":{"rendered":"
This week is Thai Rice and Farmers\u2019 week and we\u2019re celebrating a little known and un-publicized Thai agricultural policy that protects Thai rice from the risks of genetically-modified organisms. Because of the policy, farmers and consumers \u2013 around the world, not just in Thailand \u2013 have a reason to be happy: it is a public acknowledgement embedded in government policy that genetically-engineered crops are unnecessary and a risk to a sustainable future for farming.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Thais have a clear vision of the way to sustainable rice farming\u2014and GMOs are not part of the equation.<\/p>\n

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The Thai Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) has laid out this policy in their \u201cRice Strategy,\u201d a master plan committed to strengthening the nation\u2019s rice production while promoting farmers\u2019 livelihoods and consumer confidence.\u00a0 Keeping Thai rice GMO-free means that Thailand maintains its global leadership in rice production.<\/p>\n

The policy also protects Thailand\u2019s thousands-year old rice heritage from the inherent risks carried by genetically-engineered crops, risks that could threaten the future\u2014and diversity\u2014of the country\u2019s treasured rice varieties.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not just Thailand who stands to benefit from such a bold move.\u00a0 Consumers around the world know that they can trust Thai rice.\u00a0 Thailand, home to some of the best rice in the world such as the fragrant Hom Mali (jasmine) rice, is one of the largest exporters of rice in the world.\u00a0 In 2008 Greenpeace unveiled the Guinness World Record certifying Thailand as the largest exporter of rice, accounting (at that time) for 27% of all rice traded in the world.<\/p>\n

Thailand\u2019s Rice Exporters Association was one of the first to slam their doors against genetically-engineered rice in 2008.\u00a0 Getting the government to keep Thai rice safe was more challenging.\u00a0 But activists, cyberactivists, volunteers and consumers from all around Thailand continued to show their love for Thai rice by persistently calling on the government to protect rice from GMOs.<\/p>\n

In 2009, we presented a living sculpture on an organic rice field.\u00a0 The rice art, planted by farmers and volunteers and depicting farmers at rice harvest, meant to celebrate rice production in Thailand while at the same time reminding the Thai Government to protect the country\u2019s most important food crop from the imminent threat of genetic engineering.<\/p>\n

Greenpeace welcomes and supports the Thai Government\u2019s GE-free rice strategy, and is calling for its continuation beyond 2012.<\/p>\n

Today, in keeping with the festivities, we\u2019re unveiling a gigantic eco-friendly 3-dimentional artwork of an organic farm, an illustration of healthy, ecological farming.\u00a0 This massive \u2018pavement artwork,\u2019 first launched with a signature petition for GE-free farming by 1 million people in front of the European Commission in Brussels in December 2010, stands for the millions people around the world who aspire for a sustainable and secure future of food.<\/p>\n

The celebration could not have come at a better time.\u00a0 The country this week celebrates Thai Farmers\u2019 Day, which honours Thai rice farmers, the backbone of Thai society.\u00a0 It\u2019s doubly significant because this week on June 5 we also celebrate World Environment Day.\u00a0 Rice is the staple food for billions of people around the world.\u00a0 Other governments should follow Thailand\u2019s example. \u00a0A healthy environment means healthy people and food security for generations to come.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week is Thai Rice and Farmers\u2019 week and we\u2019re celebrating a little known and un-publicized Thai agricultural policy that protects Thai rice from the risks of genetically-modified organisms. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":874,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8,94,116,102],"p4-page-type":[16],"class_list":["post-873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-consumption","tag-gmo","tag-biodiversity","tag-thailand","p4-page-type-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/southeastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/southeastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/southeastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/southeastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/southeastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=873"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/southeastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65281,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/southeastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873\/revisions\/65281"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/southeastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/southeastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/southeastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/southeastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/southeastasia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}