Greenpeace China has organised an exhibition in Hong Kong called "The Land Gives Me Rice, Rice Gives Me Life" to promote sustainable agriculture in Yunnan.
The exhibition was first launched in Beijing in early June and then headed to Guangzhou at the end of June. During the tour rice farmers were given Polaroid cameras. This was the first time most of the farmers ever held a camera in their hands, yet pictures taken were of high standards and documented one year in the life of their villages.
In October 2004, Greenpeace China organised an 8-day "The Road of Rice – The Ecological Agriculture Tour" in Yunnan to celebrate "Biodiversity for Food Security," the theme of 2004's World Food Day.
China's Yunnan province is home to thousands of varieties of rice which have been farmed using traditional methods spanning thousands of years. Greenpeace says the world's rice crop, the environment, farmer's livelihoods and consumer health are all threatened by China's imminent introduction of genetically engineered (GE) rice and the use of other unsustainable industrialised farming practices such as chemical pesticides.
Greenpeace says it is against the commercialisation of GE rice and believes that the future of rice must take "an ecological path".
