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Golden rice is a variety of rice produced through genetic modification to bio-synthesise of the precursors of beta-carotene (pro-vitamin A) in the edible parts of rice. The scientific details of the rice were first published in Science in 2000. Golden rice is rice fortified with beta-carotene, which stimulates the production of vitamin A in the human body. Beta-carotene gives carrots their orange, daffodils their yellow and golden rice the distinctive tint from which it gets its name. In 2005, a new variety called golden rice 2 was announced, it produces up to 23 times more beta-carotene than the original variety. It was developed as a fortified food to be used in areas where there is a shortage of dietary Vitamin A.
According to WHO sources, yearly, vitamin A deficiency causes blindness in 500,000 children and 1 million to 2 million deaths. The medical consequences for the vitamin A-deficient 400 million rice-consuming poor are severe: impaired vision - in the extreme case irreversible blindness - impaired epithelial integrity against infections, reduced immune response, blood formation, dry eye, skeletal growth, and so on. It also weakens the body’s ability to ward off infection and minor illness. It’s estimated that up to 40 percent of children in the developing world under the age of five suffer from the immune system weaknesses associated with a deficiency of vitamin A, with most of the problems concentrated in Southeast Asia and Africa. By introducing the building blocks of vitamin A into rice, a staple food around the world, researchers hope to attack the problem affordably.
Golden rice was developed by Ingo Potrykus, professor emeritus of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland, and Prof. Peter Beyer of the University of Freiburg in Germany. The project started in 1992 and at the time of publication in 2000, Golden rice has been considered a significant breakthrough in biotechnology as the researchers had engineered an entire biosynthetic pathway.
Golden rice has been designed to produce Vitamin A precursor beta-carotene in the part of rice that people eat, the endosperm. The rice plant can produce beta-carotene, it is a carotenoid that occurs in the leaves and is involved in photosynthesis, however the plant does not normally produce the pigment in the endosperm since the endosperm is not a tissue where photosynthesis takes place. The rice has been bred with local rice cultivars in the Philippines, Taiwan and with the American rice variety Cocodrie, the first field trials of these golden rice cultivars were conducted by Louisiana State University AgCenter in 2004. Field testing will allow more accurate measurment of the nutritional value of golden rice and will enable feeding tests to be performed. Preliminary results from the field tests shown that field grown Golden rice produced 3 to 4 times more beta-carotene than the Golden rice grown under greenhouse conditions.
The research that led to golden rice was conducted with the goal of helping the millions of children who suffer from Vitamin A deficiency (VAD). Because many children in countries where there is a dietary deficiency in Vitamin A rely on rice as a staple food, the genetic modification to make rice produce provitamin A (beta-carotene) is seen a simple and less expensive alternative to vitamin supplements or an increase in the consumption of green vegetables or animal products. It is seen as the genetically engineered equivalent of fluoridated water or iodized salt.
Detractors and Supporters
Although golden rice was developed as a humanitarian tool it has met with significant opposition from environmental, anti-GMO and anti-globalization activists.
Greenpeace initially objected to the crop on the basis of the amount of Vitamin A in golden rice. The first strains developed had only 1.6 micrograms of beta-carotene per gram of rice, which would mean that a person would have to eat 1.5–2 kg of the rice per day to get the recommended daily allowance of provitamin A. However, with the development of lines with increased beta carotene, the improved variety has 37 micrograms per gram of rice. Researchers say there is enough beta-carotene in a single 72-gram serving of rice — slightly more than the typical child's serving of 60 grams — to prevent night blindness and vitamin A deficiency in children. The new golden rice may well help silence biotech critics, who have claimed that the first generation of golden rice did not contain enough beta-carotene to make a significant impact on vitamin A deficiency. Still, Greenpeace has maintained its objection to the crop and opposes all genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and is concerned that golden rice is a “Trojan horse” that will "open the door" to more widespread use of GMOs.
Vandana Shiva, an Indian anti-GMO activist, argued that the problem was not particular deficiencies in the crops themselves, but problems with poverty and loss of biodiversity in food crops. These problems are aggravated by the corporate control of agriculture based on genetically modified foods. By focusing on a narrow problem (vitamin A deficiency), Shiva argued, the golden rice proponents were obscuring the larger issue of a lack of broad availability of diverse and nutritionally adequate sources of food. Similarly other groups have argued that a varied diet containing vitamin A rich foods like sweet potato, leafy green vegetables and fruit would provide children with sufficient vitamin A. While this is true, others also contend that a varied diet is beyond the means of the many of the poor, which they say is why they subsist on a diet of rice.And since rice is frequently eaten several times a day in Asia, the newer strain of golden rice could deliver even more vitamin A.
The board led by Ingo Portykus professor emeritus of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland, and Prof. Peter Beyer of the University of Freiburg in Germany, who headed the research team that developed the first version of golden rice along with the Golden Rice Humanitarian Board has expressed frustration with the slowness of the approval process given that between 2 and 3 million children die each year from illnesses linked to vitamin A deficiency. The board also noted that golden rice has been in development since 1980 and that, "reputed ecologists, including opponents of the technology, have so far concluded that golden rice poses no imaginable risk to the environment”. It suggested that opposition to biotechnology is based more on politics than sound science.

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