We must be less Ideological and more scientific

GOLDEN rice (or Golden Rice with G and R in capitals, as the global Golden Rice Humanitarian Board, which is the proponent of the Golden Rice Project, prefers to have it written) could be the solution to one of the world’s most serious malnutrition problems: VAD. Vitamin A deficiency.

Scientists have developed a genetically modified rice variety full of the material that our bodies turn into Vitamin A. Some countries are already planting this rice varety and eating it.

The Philippines is now doing confined testing—under conditions that will not allow cross-pollination. Unless those opposed to golden rice, like some congressmen and farmers’ groups prevail, then the next step is to do field testing.

The scientist who designed or invented the genetical modification of rice is Ingo Potrykus. He is now chairman of the Humanitarian Golden Rice Board & Network. This is a body with which the government’s Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) are collaborating to fine tune the Golden Rice variety that they have developed for Philippine use.

Philippine Golden Rice would be a great blessing if tests finally show that it can be eaten by humans without causing them harm. And that it can be planted without negatively impacting other rice varieties and plants.

UNICEF estimates the annual number of children deaths worlwide caused by or resulting from vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is about 1.15 million. Many more children show VAD-related syndromes, among them loss of sight and increased susceptibility to some awful diseases because of reduced immune capabilities. This VAD blight hits the children of poor households, including those in the Philippines.

Here some one-third of our population live below the poverty line or are just holding their noses above the drowning level.

Biofortification

The science of enriching food plants, like rice, is called biofortification. The aim is to enrich what most people eat with essential nutrients. The poor in the Philippines—and other countries like Bangladesh and those in Africa and other parts of Asia—eat only rice. That and nothing more is what they can afford or can have, thanks to government or Church dole outs.

If the rice that the poor eat more or less enough of (without forgetting that there some who are so very poor as to experience hunger more often than others) could be biofortified with vitamins and other nutrients, then their poverty will no longer mean miserable and pathological undernourishment.

The poor children’s physical and mental development would no longer be stunted.

Genetically modifying rice so that it turns into Golden Rice rich in betacarotene that our bodies turn into Vitamin A will solve Vitamin A deficiency syndromes.

If only rice and other staples can be genetically modified to solve other diet deficiency problems that diminish the poor.

Unfortunately, Golden Rice may have very serious negative attributes. These are detailed in today’s special report articles.

Filipinos must be careful not to accept GMOs designed to solve one problem but will create bigger problems.

We must, however, learn to be less ideological and more scientific in our assessments. –Manila Times