What is Golden rice (Miracle Rice)
“Golden Rice” (R) and ordinary rice, in the hands of a scientist at the International Rice Research Institute in The Philippines.
▪One of the world’s great humanitarian crises has a simple cause and, some researchers argue, a simple solution. But that’s where the story gets complicated.
▪Around the world, 250 million children are vitamin A-deficient, including about a third of the world’s preschool-age population.
▪This simple deficiency kills or blinds millions of women and children each year.
▪From the beginning, Golden Rice was conceived as a project that could significantly improve global health, even though it seemed terribly futuristic when it was first proposed.
▪”Identified in the infancy of genetic engineering as having the potential for the biggest impact for the world’s poor, beta-carotene-producing rice was initially funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and the European Union,” writes Amy Harmon of The New York Times.
▪Beta-carotene, the pigment that makes carrots and squash orange, turns into vitamin A in the human body.
▪In places like the United States, where vegetables like carrots are neither expensive nor scarce, it’s difficult to grasp just how pervasive, dire, and deadly a simple vitamin deficiency can be manage.
