What is golden rice and why is it useful?
Golden rice This changes the colour of the wild rice to a golden colour. Beta carotene is needed by humans in order to make vitamin A which is essential for good vision. The advantage of golden rice is that it can be used in areas where vitamin A deficiency is common, so it can help prevent blindness.
Why is it claimed that golden rice could save millions of lives?
Golden Rice also carries the substance in the part of the plant that people eat. This small change made Golden Rice into a miracle of nutrition: The rice could combat vitamin A deficiency in areas of the world where the condition is endemic and could, thereby, “save a million kids a year.”
Why is golden rice bad for you?
VAD can have numerous negative health effects such as dryness of the eye that can lead to blindness if untreated; reduced immune system response, and an increase in the severity and mortality risk of infections.
What are the disadvantages of golden rice?
However, there are also disadvantages….Golden rice
- beta carotene levels in golden rice may not be high enough to make a difference.
- there are fears that it will cross-breed with and contaminate wild rice.
- there are concerns that food from GM plants might harm people.
- seed for GM plants can be expensive.
What are the pros of golden rice?
“Golden Rice” is a variety of rice engineered to produce beta-carotene (pro-vitamin A) to help combat vitamin A deficiency, and it has been predicted that its contribution to alleviating vitamin A deficiency would be substantially improved through even higher beta-carotene content.
Is Golden Rice effective?
Each of these plant foods can contribute to vitamin A nutrition, although the conversion of the provitamin A carotenoids within them may not be equivalent. Thus, Golden Rice may be a cost-effective staple food for combating vitamin A deficiency in rice-eating populations (29).
Was golden rice successful?
“As recently as 2017, IRRI made it clear that Golden Rice still had to be ‘successfully developed into rice varieties suitable for Asia, approved by national regulators, and shown to improve vitamin A status in community conditions. ‘
Who is the father of golden rice?
Ingo Potrykus
How is golden rice better than regular rice?
The ‘new’ property of Golden Rice, as a result of its colour, is nutrition: it contains beta-carotene (an important source of vitamin A) additional to the carbohydrate energy source of white rice, which is unchanged. Golden Rice is above all a well-being, a nutritional, a medical project.
What is the current status of golden rice?
There are no varieties of Golden Rice, or any other genetically engineered rice, on the market anywhere in the world. Government officials and researchers from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), a partner in developing Golden Rice, have said it will be available for commercial planting in 2016 or 2017.