Is Golden Rice the crop to prove GM's worth?
Is Golden Rice the crop to prove GM's worth?
Nao Nakanishi Reuters Hong Kong
It will still take years, if it ever happens, before genetically modified (GM) Golden Rice reaches the millions of children threatened with blindness or premature death due to vitamin A deficiency.
Yet scientists have not lost hope that transgenic Golden Rice, enriched with vitamin A, may prove one day that the controversial biotechnology can help feed the poor and needy if applied with caution and care.
More and more farmers, seeking lower production costs, are planting insect-resistant or herbicide-tolerant GM soy, corn or cotton. But not all consumers are convinced that such products are safe for the environment or people.
Opposing activists have dubbed such crops "Frankenstein food". Some have also voiced doubts that the technology is really being used for meeting human challenges, such as hunger or water shortages, rather than just to maximise industry profits.
"GM food cannot eradicate hunger," said Devinder Sharma, a food and trade policy specialist in India who is fighting to bar the introduction of transgenic crops into the country.
"It is not the question of production, but the distribution and access...Food is rotting in front of the people as they cannot afford it," he told Reuters from Bombay.
Next week, signatories of the U.N Cartagena Protocol, which aims for transparency in trade in GM organisms, will meet in Malaysia to discuss how to implement the protocol.
No GM rice is yet on the market, possibly because it has not been a leading subject in expensive bio-research.
Although it helps feed almost half the world's population, rice, grown largely by small farmers in Asia, has slipped off the priority lists of many private researchers.
Asked why Monsanto Co [MIN.N] was not developing GM rice, the U.S.-based biotech giant said: "Several years ago, Monsanto decided to focus its efforts on several core crops -- corn, soybeans/oilseeds, cotton and wheat."
"We made a conscious decision to focus our efforts, as it made good business sense to do so," the company said in an e-mailed reply to questions.
Scientists say China leads in development of GM rice after pumping in huge sums of government funds into plant biotechnology to improve national food security. Some say it is developing the largest research capacity outside of North America.
The country is already conducting large-scale field trials on insect- and disease-resistant rice in the eastern coastal province of Zhejiang, they say.
Still, Beijing has put off commercialisation of the GM rice due to rising safety concerns.
"China may approve the GM rice," said Dayuan Xue, a professor at the Nanjing Institute of Environmental Sciences, who also works for the State Environmental Protection Administration of China.
"(But) I think it will take at least another three years," he told Reuters, adding that Beijing had demanded more safety tests for both the food and the environment.
For example, farmers in China and elsewhere grow BT cotton, a GM crop that is toxic to insects that attack it. But Xue said the crop might encourage successive generations of the insects to become more resistant to poisons, making the problem worse.
He added that, while farmers benefited from BT cotton, which requires less pesticide against bollworms, the benefits were not necessarily large in some areas suffering from other pests.
Scientists say that, while most GM crops commercialised so far were engineered to cut production costs, the next generation of transgenic crops, such as Golden Rice, would benefit consumers directly.
"The second generation is beginning now," said Samuel Sun, a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who runs a joint project with China on rice that contains more lysine, one of the essential amino acids that the human body cannot make.
"This is harder to do. More genes are involved," said the biologist. "For the first-generation products, such as insect resistance, one gene would do."
Golden Rice -- which is a yellowish grain with beta-carotene, a substance that human bodies convert to vitamin A -- includes three new genes, including two from daffodil and a bacterium.
While GM critics have said the vitamin A content in Golden Rice is too small, others say any addition could make a difference to about 125 million children suffering from serious deficiency.
Scientists have successfully raised the vitamin A content since the invention of Golden Rice in 2001.
Swapan Datta, a scientist working on Golden Rice at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines, told Reuters IRRI would start field trials this year. It also planned tests on whether the vitamin A can be absorbed by the body.
Yet even if everything goes well, Datta and other scientists say, it will take at least another four to six years before Golden Rice makes it to the market.
Scientists say Golden Rice, if successful, would also become a model for cooperation between public and private sectors in pursuit of human welfare.
Inventors Ingo Potrykus and Peter Beyer are claiming no property rights in Golden Rice. Neither are the companies whose technology they used to devise it, such as Monsanto, Syngenta AG [SYNN.VX] and Bayer AG [BAYG.AG].
"This is one of the best examples that the private sector and the public institutions can work together," said IRRI's Datta. "If this project becomes successful, I believe in future many private sector (scientists) could be more interested in developing those technologies that can go to the people in developing countries."
In fact, some scientists and industry officials say that is already happening. The outcry from GM critics has also encouraged the private sector to do more to win consumer support.
"I think things are changing," said Andrew Powell, an independent bio-consultant based in Singapore. "We see more and more partnerships between public research institutes and private sector companies."
REUTERS
GetRTR 3.00 -- FEB 20, 2004 08:35:13