Slate CC12: How To Get Food on Every Table

2013-08-29 Activists have destroyed a field trial of "Golden Rice" in the Philippines. Golden Rice is genetically modified to have vitamin A. Three billion people depend on rice as their staple food, with 10% at risk for vitamin A deficiency. Thus, golden rice could prevent many of the 668,000 child deaths from vitamin A deficiency every year. Over the past 12 years, Greenpeace and others have tried to block Golden Rice in every possible way, even though science shows no adverse effects on health or the environment.

A problem, not armageddon

It may not come as a surprise that in much of the developed world, money spent is not necessarily money used well. We have done podcasts on the ideological and political dangers of bad development policy, but the dollar-to-donuts, real practical bent of the conversation is just as important. Because at the end of the day, the international community has come up with many (169) development objectives, most all of them unreachable (we have only met one).