Tory MP Zac Goldsmith turns his fire on genetically modified food with an outburst of tired and wrongheaded myths (The minister for GM hype, 25 October). Goldsmith focuses in particular on "golden rice", genetically modified to tackle blindness caused by vitamin A deficiency, but seems more concerned with ridding the world of "evil GM" than using the technique to help people. "Commentators are wondering why hi-tech golden rice should be hailed as a solution to a problem that could be solved far more cheaply and quickly with the supply of green vegetables and cheap supplements," he says.

Vitamin A deficiency is, despite existing interventions, the biggest cause of childhood blindness, and responsible for about 28% of child mortality globally, killing about 6,000 children every day. That's more deaths than from HIV/Aids, TB or malaria. White rice feeds half the world daily and does not provide vitamin A, while the potential of golden rice to prevent this shameful situation has been proven.

The people who suffer from vitamin A deficiency have no access to alternative foods, let alone supplements, and they rely heavily on rice – which sometimes constitutes 90% of their daily food. Just 40g of golden rice per day – costing no more than white rice – should provide the vitamin A lacking in their diets.

So why does Goldsmith support the destruction of carefully regulated environmental field trials? Has Goldsmith ever witnessed grinding poverty? His echo of "let them eat cake" is as inhumane now as when Marie Antoinette was meant to have said it. He says golden rice "is not even ready for commercial planting". The reason for this is because of the unjustified suspicions echoed by people like him.

Goldsmith goes on to complain that farmers who grow GM "are now struggling with herbicide-resistant 'superweeds'". In fact golden rice is no more likely to encourage "superweeds" than white rice. But when he claims that "traditional hybridisation has actually delivered ... drought-tolerant and flood-tolerant rice varieties with higher yields", he really shows his confusion. Hybridisation implies purchasing replacement seed for every year's planting (not necessary for golden rice) – odd that he should support such a technique when in the same breath he criticises "a GM model that requires farmers to purchase patented seeds each year".

Perhaps he means "traditional breeding". But this has often involved making random genome alterations, through chemicals or irradiation, then picking the mutated plants we like best. It can result in thousands of gene mutations, even deletion of whole chromosomes; you might even call it genetic modification on a grand, chaotic scale. Yet for some reason, Goldsmith prefers it to the precise techniques of genetic engineering.

Instead of adopting this simplistic "GM is evil" stance, Zac Goldsmith should perhaps reflect on the modern reality: that GM crop projects such as nonprofit golden rice can deliver environmental and health benefits which are simply not achievable through conventional plant breeding – and using a technology safer than organic farming.

And here's what really sticks in my throat. If golden rice were "natural" in Goldsmith's eyes, he would embrace it. The lives of 6,000 children a day depend on his whimsical distinction.