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Vitamin-A enriched rice awaits biosafety clearance

Govt set to release ‘Golden Rice’ for farming

Published : Wednesday, 27 November, 2019 at 12:00 AM  Count : 374

Govt set to release ‘Golden Rice’ for farming

Govt set to release ‘Golden Rice’ for farming


Bangladesh is set to release "Golden Rice" for planting as the first country to approve it with high-level political support, although environmentalists are still vocal in their condemnation of it as a genetically engineered food.
The Golden Rice under review in Bangladesh was created at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Ba�os in the Philippines. Researchers bred the beta-carotene genes into a rice variety named dhan 29, which is grown widely during the dry season in Bangladesh and contributes about 14 per cent of the national harvest.
In tests of dhan 29 Golden Rice at multiple locations, researchers at the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) in Gazipur found no new farming challenges and no significant differences in quality-except for the presence of vitamin A, which never proved its efficiency level in the real sense at the consumption      level, but we (Ministry of Agriculture) are hopeful that Golden Rice might get the green light soon," a senior official of the Ministry told the Daily Observer.
However, a biosafety approval is a prerequisite for varietal release in Bangladesh.
Golden Rice is a genetically modified organism, developed in the late 1990s by German plant scientists Ingo Potrykus and Peter Beyer to combat vitamin A deficiency, the leading cause of childhood blindness. And stop to deaths from infectious diseases caused by vitamin A. In Bangladesh it affects about 21 per cent of children, according to the government statistics. And mentioning the issue the government wants to release the Golden Rice as soon as possible. Cooked Golden Rice resembles khichuri, a popular dish of rice and lentils cooked with turmeric.
"Vitamin A deficiency is practically unknown in the Western world, where people take multivitamins or get sufficient micronutrients from ordinary foods, fortified cereals, and we are taking different vegetables for that but why the hurriedness here," a senior official asked.
Greenpeace, which had a long record of opposition to all GMO foods and crops, issued a statement that an adult would have to eat 9 kilograms (about 20 pounds) of cooked Golden Rice daily to prevent persistent vitamin A deficiency, and that "a breast-feeding woman would have to eat at least 6.3 kilos in dry weight, which converts to nearly 18 kilos [40 pounds] of cooked rice per day."
"Since the bioavailability of beta carotene in the rice was not then known, there was no factual basis for these claims, which in any case were later proved false. At about the same time, the Indian anti-GMO crusader Vandana Shiva called Golden Rice a "hoax."
Over the past 2 years, regulators in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia approved Golden Rice for consumption. There are no plans to grow the crop in these countries, but approval will prevent problems if Golden Rice somehow accidentally turns up in food supplies.
He says approval would show that agricultural biotechnology can be successfully developed by publicly funded research centres for the public good. Still, environmental groups haven't dropped their opposition-and the first harvest isn't expected until at least 2021. And more research will be needed to show the extent of real-world benefits from Golden Rice.
"Yes, the crop has been grown, and grown successfully, first in laboratories, then in greenhouses, and finally in open fields, we tested the safety studies-toxicity and allergenicity studies-but we need to know and studies on human consumption," the senior official of the Ministry of Environment said.
Putting emphasis over the research work over the issue, Asian Institute of Policy and Governance (SIPG) of North South University, Prof Dr Zeba Islam Seraj said there should be a specialized cell within the Ministry of Environment to deal with the GMO (genetically modified organism) events. Otherwise, the issue of advancing the frontier science and release of future biotech products would suffer, feared Dr Zeba, who heads the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at DU.
Anwar Faruque, a former agriculture secretary, emphasized on investing more on research and development of agro-biotechnology.
"We get field reports in this connection, but we do not know what will be the quality of the rice after we preserve it for a long time. We need to know that part to get a very good verity of rice which could help us curb the death rate of our children," he said.










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