What’s In Your Rice Bowl?

Yesterday, TreeHugger asked the question: what’s on your plate? Today, we ask: what’s in your rice bowl? Unfortunately, the answer could be: more than you think. Commercial long grain rice grown in the United States has been found to include untested and unapproved genetically engineered (GE) rice. The contaminated rice contained GE Liberty Link rice 602, a product of the agro-chemical company Bayer. In an attempt to protect its citizens from the rice, which was never intended for commercial release, Japan immediately banned imports from the United States. The European Union followed suit by imposing mandatory testing and certification of US rice imports. Greenpeace has criticized the EU’s response as being inadequate, and is urging all countries to impose a full-scale ban on US rice. This issue is particularly contentious as rice is perhaps the world’s most important staple food.

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