Sapa-AFP
In 1992, a pair of scientists had a brainwave: how about inserting genes into rice that would boost its vitamin A content?
By doing so, tens of millions of poor people who depend on rice as a staple could get a vital nutrient, potentially averting hundreds of thousands of cases of blindness each year.
The idea for what came to be called golden rice – named for its bright yellow hue – was proclaimed as a defining moment for genetically modified (GM) food. Backers said the initiative ushered in an era when GM crops would start to help the poor and malnourished, rather than benefit only farmers and biotech firms.
“It’s a humanitarian project,” Ingo Potrykus, a professor emeritus at Switzerland’s Federal Institute of Technology, one of the co-inventors of golden rice, said.
Yet the rice is still a long way from appearing in food bowls – 2016 has become the latest date sketched for commercialisation, provided the novel product gets the go-ahead. With $30 million (R323m) invested in it so far, the odyssey speaks of the technical, regulatory and commercial hurdles that have beset the “biofortified food” dream.
First, it took scientists years to find and insert two genes that modified the metabolic pathway in rice to boost levels of beta-carotene, the precursor to vitamin A. After that came the biosafety phase, to see if the rice was safe for health and the environment – and if beta-carotene levels in lab plants were replicated in field trials in different soils and climates.
There were also bio-efficacy experiments to see whether the rice did indeed overcome vitamin deficiency, and whether volunteers found the taste acceptable.
The tests are still unfolding in the Philippines, Indonesia and Bangladesh, according to Bruce Tolentino, the deputy director-general of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) based in the Philippines.
“We have been working on this for a long time and we would like to have this process completed as soon as possible,” he said. But “it depends on the regulatory authorities. That is not under our control.”
Antonio Alfonso at the Philippine Rice Research Institute, which partners the IRRI in the not-for-profit development of golden rice, said: “It will be two or three more years before we can apply for commercialisation.”
The rice’s yield might also have to be tweaked to boost its appeal to farmers, whose buy-in was essential, he said.
Coming on the heels of golden rice is the so-called super banana developed by the Queensland University of Technology in Australia with the help of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Genetically designed to be enriched with beta-carotene, the bananas were sent to the US last month for a six-week trial to measure by how much they lifted vitamin A levels in humans. If all goes well, they will start to be grown commercially in Uganda in 2020.
Project leader James Dale said so-called cooking bananas grown as the staple food in east Africa were low in vitamin A and iron. “Good science can make a massive difference here.”
Other research into biofortified food has looked at boosting levels of important micronutrients in cassava and maize, but progress has also been faltering.
Environmental groups are defiant about GM-fortified foods. Some have dubbed golden rice “fool’s gold”.
Greenpeace says the risks of GM contamination to other plants and impacts on health may not emerge for years.
There are also suspicions that developing countries are being used as a technological testbed – and contentions that malnutrition will not be ended by a magic bullet fired from a gene laboratory.