by Peter Rosset

About the author: Peter Rosset is executive director of Food First/The Institute for Food and Development Policy. He is coauthor of World Hunger/Twelve Myths (Grove Press, 2nd ed. 1998).

When a group of Filipino farmers were asked in late 1999 for their thoughts on genetically engineered rice seeds, a peasant leader responded with what might be called the Parable of the Golden Snail. It seems that rice farmers have long supplemented the protein in their diet with local snails that live in rice paddies. At the time of the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship [1965–1986], Imelda Marcos [his wife] had the idea of introducing a snail from South America that was said to be more productive and, as such, a means to help end hunger and protein malnutrition. But no one liked the...