Scientists Hope New Rice Will Help Poor Children

Could rice help prevent blindness and even death in children?

The International Rice Research Institute believes so. IRRI is pushing field trials so that farmers could their sow fields by 2015 with a new rice variety — called golden rice – that could help address Vitamin A deficiency. A lack of the vitamin is a leading cause of preventable blindness and is linked to death due to infections in many poor countries.

The World Health Organization estimates that 250 million young children don't get enough Vitamin A. Up to 500,000 of these young children go blind every year. Half die within a year of losing their sight.

The golden rice program has received the backing of such groups as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Helen Keller International, the Rockefeller Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development. USAID provided $10.3 million in 2010 that is paying for research on golden rice's safety and field trials in the Philippines and Bangladesh.

But opponents, such as Greenpeace International, say oppose the rice, warning that genetically modified organisms could unleash serious, long-lasting problems in the environment. Greenpeace successfully petitioned the Philippine Supreme Court to stop the government's field trials of genetically modified egglant. It has yet to decided whether it will go to court to block golden rice.

"There are already working solutions to address fortification of everyday food, not just with Vitamin A but other micronutrients," said Danny Ocampo of Greenpeace.

A small clinical test on people of the bio-fortified rice was conducted in the U.S. in 2009. IRRI plans to do testing on animals through their feed as early as next year, followed by tests on humans. It is unclear whether golden rice will taste as good as other rice and whether consumers will want to buy it. An iron-fortified rice now being sold by the Philippine government is cheap, but some consumers who can afford more expensive rice avoid it because they say it doesn't taste as good.

Golden rice gets its name from its yellow color. The variety was engineered by introducing a few genes–initially from daffodils, then from yellow corn–so that the grains' edible part produces beta carotene, a pigment that gives fruits and leafy vegetables their color and that the human body converts into Vitamin A. Rice can produce beta carotene in its leaves.

The first scientific details of golden rice were made public in 2000. At that time, it was an eight-year-old project of Professor Ingo Potrykus of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and Dr. Peter Beyer of the University of Freiburg in Germany addressing malnutrition.

Swiss agribusiness company Syngenta AGSYNN.VX 0.00% in 2005 produced new golden rice materials that produced 23 times more beta carotene than the original breed. But instead of producing it commercially, Syngenta decided a year later to donate it to IRRRI to make the bio-fortification of rice a humanitarian project.

"Our hope is that farmers everywhere will be planting their fields with golden rice in two years," Dr. Bruce Tolentino, a deputy director general at IRRI, told The Wall Street Journal. He said after field trials this year, IRRI hopes to feed golden rice to animals and then to humans by next year.

He said scientists decided to bio-fortify rice because other food products are more expensive and aren't part of most people's diet.

"Half of the world eats rice and 70% of the poor eats rice. So why not make it more healthy," Dr. Tolentino added.

IRRI estimates that per-capita consumption of rice is around 65 kilograms a year worldwide. And in developing Asia, the consumption doubles to 135 kilos in Indonesia and triples to 200 kilos in Myanmar. Per-capita consumption of rice in the Philippines is around 120 kilos a year.

But golden rice is sparking opposition in the Philippines. In early August, an experimental farm in the Philippine town of Pili, which is testing whether golden rice could grow and be produced in various climatic conditions in this archipelago of more than 7,000 islands, was vandalized.

But Dr. Evangeline dela Trinidad, a plant pathologist designated by Philippines' Department of Agriculture to lead the golden rice trials in Pili town, said of opponents, "It's fear of the unknown."

IRRI is collaborating with the Philippine Rice Research Institute and the agriculture department for Philippine trials. Golden rice trials are also being conducted in Indonesia and Bangladesh.

Dr. dela Trinidad pointed to special corn and cotton called bt corn and bt cotton, with the bt referring to bacillus thuringiensis, a naturally occurring soil bacteria that produces proteins to stop target insects, such as the corn borer that reduces corn production.

Bt corn and Bt cotton are already being cultivated and produced in the Philippines, without the negative problems critics warned about.

"Bt corn is already being commercially produced in Isbela," said Dr. dela Trinidad, referring to the northern Philippine province that is a major producer of the grain. "We also have Bt cotton," she added.

IRRI points to a small trial on golden rice by The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2009 that had five volunteers from Boston that showed 100 grams of the new variety could provide up to 70% of the recommended dietary allowance of Vitamin A for both men and women. Because that study only involved adult Americans, IRRI had to "speculate" that 50 grams of golden rice would provide children aged four to eight greater than 60% of the recommended dietary allowance.

source: blogs.wsj.com