Will Farmers in the Philippines Plant Golden Rice?

THIRD WORLD NETWORK BIOSAFETY INFORMATION SERVICE

Dear Friends and Colleagues

Will Farmers in the Philippines Plant Golden Rice?

“Golden Rice” is a genetically modified beta carotene-enriched crop intented to reduce Vitamin A deficiency, a health problem in very poor areas. Developed in 1992, its research moved to the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines in 2002. In 2005, Syngenta, which had acquired commercial rights to the rice, unveiled Golden Rice 2 (GR2).

Researchers inserted these GR2 genes into multiple plants. IRRI breeders took the most promising event and began breeding the trait into two lowland rice varieties. Field trials showed that the introduced genes had disrupted other genes and lowered the rice’s productivity, so breeders turned to a different event. The latter was deemed adequate and the Philippine Bureau of Plant Industry designated it as “safe” in December 2019.

However, Golden Rice still has to be approved for commercial sale and still needs a company to grow marketable quantities of seed. Two crucial problems remain. First, the claim that Golden Rice will remedy Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) remains unproven. Vitamin A is fat-soluble, and children with VAD rarely have fats in their diet. Moreover, they usually suffer from gut parasites and infections that make it harder to convert beta carotene to vitamin A. Second, there is no clear way for the rice to get to the children who need it. Projections of the benefits of Golden Rice assume that farmers will immediately grow it, but families poor enough to be affected by VAD often lack land to grow rice for themselves.

Researchers have examined whether commercial farmers would plant Golden Rice in a new study of seed selection practices in a “rice bowl” area of the Philippines. Farmers choose from a large and rapidly changing array of rice seeds, based on agronomic performance, market demands and local trends. Their choices show that varieties in which the Golden Rice trait are expected to be available have declined in popularity, overtaken by newer and better performing varieties. Some might adopt Golden Rice if it could fetch a premium in the market, but extremely poor customers are unlikely to pay it. The study finds that commercial rice farmers may not choose to plant Golden Rice varieties unless they are offered specific inducements to do so. In any case, it is unclear who would pay them to plant it.

The authors say: “The Philippines has managed to cut its childhood VAD rate in half with conventional nutrition programs. If Golden Rice appears in the market in the Philippines by 2022, it will have taken over 30 years of development to create a product that may not affect vitamin levels in its target population, and that farmers may need to be paid to plant.”

 

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Item 1

GOLDEN RICE AND TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION THEORY: A STUDY OF SEED CHOICE DYNAMICS AMONG RICE GROWERS IN THE PHILIPPINES

Dominic Glover, Sung Kyu Kim, Glenn Davis Stone
Technology in Society
Volume 60
20 Feb 2020, 101227
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160791X19304804?via%3Dihub#!

Highlights

* To reach people at risk of vitamin A deficiency, GR must first be planted.
* Paper examines seed selection practices of Philippine rice farmers.
* We find little evidence of chaotic seed fads influenced by off-farm didacts.
* However, off-farm didacts do appear to influence perceptions of seed popularity.
* Farmers are unlikely to plant GR in its current varieties, unless induced to do so.

Abstract

Golden Rice (GR) is a much-debated transgenic crop. Many commentaries and economic analyses have assumed that, if and when the new GR varieties are released, the grains will automatically find their way onto the plates of children in especially poor families who are at risk of vitamin A deficiency (VAD). But many of these families are not rice growers or are unlikely to adopt the varieties into which the transgenic trait has been bred. This raises the neglected question addressed in this paper: How likely is it that commercial rice growers will choose to plant GR varieties? To examine this question, we draw upon and contribute to a wider literature on what drives farmers’ seed selection practices. Seed choice has been a frequent case in the elaboration of technology adoption theory. We apply a recently proposed tripartite model of learning, and present new survey data to shed light on the dynamics of seed choice and variety replacement rates among rice farmers in two sites in Nueva Ecija, Luzon, the Philippines. We compare our findings with previous research on the seed choices of Indian cotton and rice farmers in Warangal, Telangana, India. Seed choices in Nueva Ecija show a moderate degree of faddishness and herding behaviour, and the varieties in which the GR trait are expected to be available have declined in popularity. Farmers here show a modest and variable susceptibility to persuasion by external parties that seek to promote specific rice varieties. Our study suggests that commercial rice farmers may not choose to plant GR varieties unless they are offered specific inducements to do so.

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Item 2

THE PHILIPPINES HAS RATED ‘GOLDEN RICE’ SAFE, BUT FARMERS MIGHT NOT PLANT IT

Glenn Davis Stone and Dominic Glover
The Conversation
8 Feb 2020
https://theconversation.com/the-philippines-has-rated-golden-rice-safe-but-farmers-might-not-plant-it-129956

 “Golden Rice” is probably the world’s most hotly debated genetically modified organism (GMO). It was intended to be a beta carotene-enriched crop to reduce Vitamin A deficiency, a health problem in very poor areas. But it has never been offered to farmers for planting.

Why not? Because Golden Rice has an activist problem, according to its proponents. They insist that the rice would have prevented millions of child deaths by now had it not been blocked by anti-science activists.

In particular, they single out Greenpeace, which has campaigned against approval of Golden Rice as part of its broader opposition to GMOs. Greenpeace responds that its actions are not what has kept Golden Rice from reaching the market.

We study developing-world agriculture, including use of genetically modified crops, and are conducting ongoing research on Golden Rice, originally funded by the Templeton Foundation. We advocate keeping an open mind about Golden Rice, which may eventually have some nutritional potential in limited cases. But our view, based on numerous scientific studies, is that the rice is still beset by problems that have little to do with activists.

Filling a nutritional gap?

Vitamin A is one of many nutrients lacking in the diets of the world’s poorest children. Vitamin A deficiency, or VAD, can cause blindness and even premature death.

The vitamin comes directly from animal products and indirectly from beta carotene in plants, which the human body can convert to Vitamin A. Plant scientist Ingo Potrykus, who co-developed Golden Rice, has claimed that “VAD often occurs where rice is the major staple food.” White rice grains contain no beta carotene.

But it’s not rice’s job to provide vitamins. Most diets across Asia and Africa consist of a carbohydrate core such as rice or maize, which provides calories and bulk, and a sauce, stew or soup for flavor and nutrients.

Since rice is a poor source of vitamins and minerals, any child eating a rice-only diet will be sick. Genetically modifying rice to contain beta carotene is at best a band-aid for extreme cases of VAD, not a corrective for a widespread problem.

Decades of development

Potrykus and colleagues devised a strategy for producing Golden Rice in 1992, and announced in 2000 that they had developed an experimental prototype. Potrykus appeared on the cover of Time magazine with his rice, which the cover proclaimed “could save a million kids a year.”

The biologists were on to something, but the prototype was nowhere near ready for farmers or consumers. The beta carotene concentration was far too low, and researchers did not know if the plants would grow well. The prototype was also a rice variety that farmers in VAD areas would not grow.

In 2002 Golden Rice research moved to the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines to be developed for Filipino farmers. Meanwhile scientists at the global agricultural company Syngenta, which had acquired commercial rights to the rice, began to develop a new package of genes to improve the beta carotene levels. By 2005 they unveiled Golden Rice 2, which accomplished this.

Next, researchers inserted these GR2 genes into multiple plants, with the goal of introducing them without disrupting other genes. Each insertion is called an “event.” IRRI breeders took the most promising event and began breeding the trait into two trusty lowland rice varieties.

But there was a problem. Field trials showed that the introduced genes had indeed disrupted other genes and lowered the rice’s productivity, so breeders turned to a different event. By 2017 field trials showed that this rice grew adequately. The rice was submitted to the Philippine Bureau of Plant Industry, which designated it as safe in December 2019.

However, Golden Rice still has to be approved for commercial sale and still needs a company to grow marketable quantities of seed. Proponents’ claim that the rice would be given free to farmers is false: No one has offered to produce and distribute the rice seed for nothing. And even if someone were to grow marketable quantities of seed for sale, two crucial problems remain.

Unanswered questions

First, the claim that Golden Rice will remedy Vitamin A deficiency remains unproven. As IRRI scientists themselves stressed in 2013, “It has not yet been determined whether daily consumption of Golden Rice does improve the vitamin A status of people who are vitamin A deficient.”

Vitamin A is fat-soluble, and children with VAD rarely have fats in their diet. Moreover, they usually suffer from gut parasites and infections that make it harder to convert beta carotene to vitamin A.

A 2012 study, which has been cited over 70 times – despite being retracted in 2015 for breaching research ethics – seemed to show that Golden Rice would raise children’s vitamin A levels. But children in the study were fed balanced meals that included fats, thus demonstrating only that Golden Rice worked in children who did not need it.

Even the latest analysis of Golden Rice’s safety points out that research has yet to show that it will mitigate VAD. And by the time Golden Rice gets to undernourished children, its beta carotene level may be very low, since the compound deteriorates fairly quickly.

Fortifying foods like rice with micronutrients is an established strategy for reducing malnutrition. But Golden Rice is the first effort to do this through genetic engineering.

Second, there is no clear way for the rice to get to the children who need it. Projections of the benefits of Golden Rice assume that farmers will immediately grow it, but families poor enough to be affected by VAD often lack land to grow rice for themselves. VAD in the Philippines has been highest in Mountain Province, where farmers are unlikely to plant lowland rice varieties, and in part of metro Manila where no rice farming occurs.

To reach undernourished kids in areas like these, Golden Rice would have to be grown by commercial farmers and sold in markets. We examined whether farmers would plant Golden Rice in a new study of seed selection practices in a “rice bowl” area of the Philippines.

Farmers choose from a large and rapidly changing array of rice seeds, based on agronomic performance, market demands and local trends. Their choices show that varieties containing the “Golden” trait are out of fashion, overtaken by newer and better performing varieties.

Some might adopt Golden Rice if it could fetch a premium in the market, but extremely poor customers are unlikely to pay it. Farmers may need subsidies to plant Golden Rice, but it is unclear who would pay them to plant it.

An oversold solution

The old claim, repeated again in a recent book, that Golden Rice was “basically ready for use in 2002” is silly. 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.”

The Philippines has managed to cut its childhood VAD rate in half with conventional nutrition programs. If Golden Rice appears on the market in the Philippines by 2022, it will have taken over 30 years of development to create a product that may not affect vitamin levels in its target population, and that farmers may need to be paid to plant.

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