BBC News: Bangladesh ‘endorses’ GM rice

The Bangladesh Agriculture Ministry says it hopes to release a type of genetically modified rice to farmers if on-going research is successful.

Apparently, this is a new wonder rice:

He said beta carotene - which the body develops into Vitamin A - had been taken from daffodils and added to the rice. This made it useful in fighting conditions such as poor sight and blindness.

I wonder if this is the same “golden rice” that Anuradha Mittal wrote about on the Alternet website a couple of years back:

Alternet: ‘Golden’ Rice Is Tarnished

This altered rice was given the honorific “golden” because a daffodil gene was inserted, giving it an orange color. This gene produces beta-carotene in the rice, a nutrient humans can convert into vitamin A. Because vitamin A deficiency contributes to blindness and infectious diseases among the poor in developing countries, golden rice was aggressively advertised as a miracle grain to end suffering for millions around the world. More importantly, golden rice was the first of several foods the biotech industry said would make it possible to eradicate world hunger.

…

Developers of this grain have been vague on how much golden rice a person must eat to get enough beta-carotene for the recommended daily vitamin A needs. But an analysis of industry data shows that in order for those most vulnerable to blindness — infants — to get enough vitamin A from breast milk, their mothers would have to consume almost 40 pounds of cooked rice per day.

Let’s hope the formula’s been concentrated a little more since that article was written in July 2003.

As in all these things, you have to ask in whose interest would this rice be introduced and why.

Research into the new crop is being carried out by the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute. Back in 2003, the BRRI worked with Syngenta Bangladesh Limited to develop a method of protecting Bangladesh’s rice crop from the yellow stem borer. A venture funded, interestingly, by the Crop Protection Programme of the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID).

There’s a mention of Syngenta on the BRRI’s links page

Syngenta Bangladesh Limited is a subsidiary of Syngenta, the “world-leading agribusiness committed to sustainable agriculture through innovative research and technology”.

Syngenta, also owns AstraZeneca, formerly (before a merger), Zeneca which owns the exclusive commercial rights to “golden rice”.

So, a connection between the institute evaluating the viability of the new strain and the company who owns the commercial rights to “golden rice”. The research’s findings will make interesting reading.

Posted on January 18th, 2005 at 11:51 pm

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