seems like switching one evil for another. Which of the two evils worse though?

"seems like switching one evil for another. Which of the two evils worse though?"

I think it's pretty obvious that GM rice which MAY or MAY NOT have problems is better than the KNOWN massive problems related to climate, nitrogen runoffs, etc..

That's assuming GM rice is the ONLY solution

I am very weary of GMO's but even if one were to ignor that horrible thing this creates more problems than it solves. IThe sheer decline in soil remediation would have fairly negative effects. The Chinese government would being doing everyone a much greater favor by rewarding farmers for using green fertilization techniques, such as composting or even humanure. I agree that chemical fertilizers are quite detrimental to the environment, but I don't think it a wise solution to modify our crops to need less nutrients; they are likely to produce less nutrients for the consumer and contribute to the proliferation of barren land which can grow nothing.

the tech isn't "use less nutrients", it is "absorb nitrogen more effectively, so less is wasted".

That would help whether you use fertilizer or compost or whatever.

"That's assuming GM rice is the ONLY solution"

No. it's just saying it's *one* potential solution that we should look at instead of knee-jerking.

If someone shows a problem with it, then there's a problem. But if there's no problems. Will people still dislike it dogmatically?

How is the gene introduced into the rice, via virus? Hope not.

Let's see, as a human, the first thing I would do is sell my carbon credits, use the GM rice AND try to yield more rice by using the same amount of fertilizer. If I didn't get more rice, I would still use the cheapest fertilizer I could get, which sounds like petro-chemicals in China. BTW, how much less fertilizer?

I like Jake's plan, encourage the use of natural fertilizer, and still sell the carbon credits from the reduction. Oh wait, big business won't make any money though. That's bad for the economy. But then again, what does Mother Nature know?

Does the GHG reduction credit account for the manufacturing and distribution of the rice?

There biggest piece of this puzzle is completely missing from this discussion Nitrification, the conversion of NO3 or NO2 to NH4 is a bacterial driven process. If excess organic matter is dispensed into the rice paddy, making the water or soil anoxic, the process goes into reverse (de-nitrification). Failure to recognize this derails any credence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrification

"How is the gene introduced into the rice, via virus? Hope not."

Why would that be a problem? Because you think it sounds bad? Viruses are just RNA pieces, they're a good way to get payload into cell DNA.

"I like Jake's plan, encourage the use of natural fertilizer, and still sell the carbon credits from the reduction"

Sure, but if there was enough natural fertilizer just laying around, I think they'd use it.

With this tech, plants would need less natural fertilizer too, so more food could be grown with it.

I'm all for restraint if there's a good scientific reason. But if it's just ideological reactionary fluff that keeps us from savings lives, depolluting ecosystems and feeding the poor, that's just very very sad.

...what about growing organic rice or some of the many other types of KNOWN safe and sustainable agricultural methods already available?
I dont like the slant of this article. Who do you work for, anyway? =]
But seriously, not only would this send a message to GM agribusiness saying that it's good to make eco-efficient strains, but it's also setting a precedent for them as well, which allows them to keep doing what they are doing. Not sure if you've noticed [writing for treehugger, and all], but there is some intensely shady stuff going on in the GM agribusiness world. Something to do with patenting life forms and suing farmers when the GM seeds cross-breed with non GM plants, oh, and not knowing the lasting effects of GM crops on the bio-fluctuations of the planet....
And also, "they also figured out a way to work with the Chinese government to allow Chinese farmers to get carbon credits when they use their rice.". this usually means they gave the govt a bunch of money. i'm not sure that you're paying attention to the way things work as far as big business and govt, especially when it comes to the environment, but after reading your bio on here, i'm left wondering if it was really you who wrote this article in the first place!

While GM rice is not the *only* solution, it certainly remains the only *viable* solution today.

We have been altering our plants for since we started growing food in rows. GM is nothing new or dangerous. hybridization has always been around now we are getting better at it.

however GM that is made withstand more pesticides and doesn't breed to make the next years crop is evil like DRM,

Food grown with artificial nitrogen is less nutritious in the first place, and more prone to pests, not to mention the N20 problem and runoff too. So less artificial nitrogen is just less of something crappy. This is a temporary improvement, but it not sustainable. Agriculture can only achieve sustainability when it eliminates nonlocal chemical fertility inputs and embraces the life-giving power of naturally fertilized, biodiverse soil. I also am wary of what some have called "genetic pollution" and what it might mean in the long run if we try to bypass evolution--which is what keeps life on Earth humming along in balance so well. The funny thing is that we have solutions to agriculture's problems already. Polyculture and permaculture...these are our true hope. Whether these can work at an industrial scale or not will ultimately decide whether industrial agriculture survives.

My goodness, the Chinese Government is ‘allowing’ the rice farmers to gain carbon credits.

Am I alone in seeing this as the crassest nay, the pinnacle of hypocrisy?

China – home to the nastiest, soot and CO2 spewing coal fired power plants on the planet, the filthiest of old school blast furnaces, high sulfur fuels, lethal water pollution and on and on. China pollutes at a rate that is literally mind boggling.

And they want rice farmers to have carbon credits????????

Does this mean American and Canadian farmers can claim carbon credits as well?

I would rather see at least some minimal effort from the government of China to cleaning up the foul mess they have made of their own home before bringing up ‘carbon credits’.

Look, maybe GM can be a good solution, if done well, but I am concerned that many people are blinded by the newness & 'techy-ness' of it. It's new, it's clever, that's great, but all we should be concerned with is 'right'.

"We have been altering our plants for since we started growing food in rows."
I hear that a lot, but I never understand why doing something in the past gives you carte blanche to do whatever you want in the future.

How long is GMO's proven track record? Is it even up to a couple of decades yet? I just get concerned that this magic bullet will come to be viewed as CFC's & adding lead to petrol - what was thought to be the best solution at the time, was later seen as getting us into an even bigger mess.

Maybe this is a US / Europe thing. From here it seems the default position from North Americans is to always support GM.

I'm surprised to see this kind of uneducated article to pass through Treehugger's filters. I'm also surprised to see how unaware the readers here seem to be about serious risks that are involved in genetic modification of food. It might be clever to study the fertilizer issue a little more, before coming to conclusion that GM rice is the only, or even best solution.

It's worrying that there's documented corruption of science and research in the field of genetic modification of food. There are no independent studies to show that GM foods are safe, but evidence of dangers has repeatedly been suppressed - even findings of FDA's own scientists.

Here's a good place to start searching for independent information on risks of GM foods:
http://www.seedsofdeception.com/Public/AboutGeneticallyModifiedFoods/index.cfm

Here's an example of how sincere the GM companies are in their efforts to bring relief to world's problems:
http://www.foodrevolution.org/askjohn/53.htm

Can't wait for all the professional protesters to come out. Maybe they'll throw bricks or something...

We're against global warming. And we're against GMs. The only way to do things is our pure way, otherwise lets do nothing except talk about it. If people die on our watch, at least we can say we were pure.

Money paid by green consumers to offset their flights and by companies that go carbon-neutral will be used to found the planting of genteically modified crops under plans drawn up by a US biotech company.

I am amazed to find an argument in favor of GM crops on this website. Isn't it obvious that once you step into the GM trap, there is no stepping out. The problem is that pollen from GM plants mixes with pollen from other crops and then you end up with a big mess, where everything contains some form of gmo, and there is no going back. Ecosystems function as a whole and when you make a small change in one part, the other parts are also affected. The solution to the CO2 crisis is not Genetic Modification. GM crops are a new problem we are creating that future generations will have to try and sort out.

Pollen from organisms that were modified by humans through cross-breeding is already mixing with nature, so we're a few thousand years too late to stop.

No to mention that it's not like a rice paddy would be growing there were it not for us...

What other realistic alternatives do you have for Chinese farmers? You won' feed a billion people with a little compost.

I like the folks who have stuck to the science behind crop genetic engineering in their comments. I have been closely following the debate about genetically modified foods. My conclusion is that people are angry about biotech corporations, but not crop genetic engineering itself. I have a lot of respect for scientists. They do their work diligently. I would be sooo happy to see people go into nitty-gritties of genetic engineering rather than engage in generalizations. Such only dispirits the scientific community. This is a topic I have dealt with repeatedly in my blog GMO Africa.

That's an interesting blog you have there Biologia. You make some good points about how it could be different if not done solely through corporations. But to ask a general question (sorry) as a non-scientist (like yourself?), this comment on your blog sums up a lot of the fears of people like me:

"recombinant DNA technologies (what most people are referring to when they use the term ‘GMO’) were first discovered in 1973 and were not used commercially until 1996......once they are let loose on the environment, you cannot recall genes."

Do you not feel that this technology moves from lab to land too quickly?

seems like a snaeky way to get GM crops in thru the backdoor

Using a GMO crop in a country like China to lower notrogen pollution brings up as many or more issues than it solves. This is not a sustainable or green solution. It is a solution for big agro business to profit off of the green trend. What about the people? How are they going to afford to buy the gmo seeds every year? How do we really know that these seeds will have the long term environmental benefits we are looking for? I see more questions than answers with this article. The Green Movement should be more than a get rich quick scam for biotech.

If the seeds cost less than the fertilizer, plus they get kyoto credits, this could certainly be a good financial deal for the farmers.

What strikes me time and time again is twofold:

What moneystreams and powerdynamics are behind GM initiatives like these (and unofrtunately a few others, ie the monsanto clan)

Just a quick search:
Funny to learn that Ardadia's president Erik Rey is a former Monsanto VP Operations.

At face value, without even researching much, alarm bells start ringing.

Again, whose needs are truly attended to in the long run, planet earth with its inhabitants or stockholders and "global-warming spinoff startups?

It's not easy being green, when one has to let go of the one green item this world seems to thrive on; money.
just my simple rule of thumb....

when a product or service can stand this test, it appears to be of true sustainability

The knee jerk reaction of people against biotech is getting really frustrating. This is an example of a GMO that is as far from evil as you can get, but people are still ignoring the science in favor of fear and misunderstanding. A technology isn't bad simply because a company can make money from selling it. Using that logic, we should all go back to the barter system, eschewing any technology.

Poor farmers in China, India, South Africa have benefitted from biotech crops. They have reduced inputs and increased yields so they can feed their families while keeping their environment healthy. NUE (nitrogen use efficiency) crops will help even more. Please open your minds and know that the anti-GMO activists are making money selling books just as the seed companies are making money selling seeds - at least the seeds are useful. Thank you, TreeHugger for seeing that at least some types of genetic engineering can be good for people and the environment.

I covered the science of NUE a bit more in depth in a blog post: http://www.geneticmaize.com/2008/01/saving-the-world-one-gmo-at-a-time/
I've also reviewed the recent report on biotech crop use in 2007 funded by the Rockefeller Foundation in this post:
http://www.geneticmaize.com/2008/02/biotech-in-developing-countries/#more-54

Do they think that the Creator somehow "went wrong" when making rice and other plants after their kind, so we need to improve them--or re-create them--somehow to make them more useful? Are we Gods of some sort? Have we ever created something, like a "simple" butterfly or a "simple" self-reproducing plant from scum? Then why do we mess with it? Are we so proud and self-absorbed? Have we no shame?

We are so ignorant that we don't even know what is good for us any more. Instead, we allow someone's subjective, often profit-driven judgments to determine the values of a whole world. It is a pity to see where things are heading and what poison people are eating, to their own detriment and to the detriment of the natural world. But WE SHALL REAP WHAT WE SOW.

Are you serious, of course this is misinformation