Golden Rice: Revolutionary or Perilous

For eight millennia, rice has been the most domesticated crop due to large scale industry of rice crop farming. Rice has achieved its prominence due to the simplicity of gathering seeds and growing the plant, making more than 70% of Asia's diet (Willis, 2019). However, it has little nutritional value, and no micronutrients. Vitamin A deficiency is prevalent in third world countries who have rice as their main source of food, posing a lack of nutritional organic compounds, essential for the growth and development and improving of the immune system and maintaining vision. So why not create rice crops genetically modified to possess high amount of carbohydrates, protein and healthy fats?

The Golden Rice Project has made this possible in effort to combat the global epidemic of world hunger. Since the rice crop possesses the structure for the induction of an antioxidant, scientists behind this project hypothesized that the synthesis of beta carotene (the antioxidant) accumulation in the rice crop can enable multiple benefits to consumers. To allow the rice plant to produce beta carotene, the crop was injected with two genes, a bacterial and plant gene. The plant phytoene synthase which employs the endogenously synthesized geranylgeranyl-diphosphate, manifesting phytoene, a dietary compound called a carotenoid. Whilst a bacterial phytoene desaturase works in combination with the already existing structure of the rice crop, forming conjugation by implementing four double bonds, finally allowing the production of this antioxidant (Maya, 2019).

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When consumed the beta carotene in a body is converted to vitamin A when exposed to the human metabolism, consequently improving several factors of the human body. This includes, the refining of the body’s immune system, combatting severe diseases, viruses and harmful bacteria, potentially disallowing any easily preventable deaths. Since vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is the most significant cause for blindness in children, golden rice can be the solution. The antioxidant it produces (beta carotene) when consumed, also sustains the level of vision a child is born with, avoiding any future blindness or contraction of fatal illnesses.

In 2012, the World Health Organization submitted a report of about 250 million preschoolers were affected by VAD. Since VAD can be potentially fatal, the affected people consist of approximately 1/28th of the world’s global population (Martinez, 2019). This clearly demonstrates the severity of this problem. The children under the ages of 5 appear to be most affected by this deficiency, where 40% of children’s immune systems are harmed by VAD, significantly accentuating the severity of this problem, often leading to fatal outcomes. Where potentially, vitamin A tablets and zinc can avoid the deaths of 4 million people who would otherwise pass away from malnutrition.

Vitamin A deficiency is the leading cause of blindness in children, affecting more than 2.8 million children currently. Where 251 million other children have already inevitably been harmed by VAD to an extent where they are unable to be helped (Gao, 2019). The instigation of golden rice will combat this problem to an unpredictable degree. Undoubtedly, it will lower the numbers of fatalities and even possibly solve this global issue.

Although this seems ideal and perfected, an opposition still stands for this product. Usually in any case of a GMO this was likely to happen. One of the points regarding why golden rice should not be planted and grown is because the technological advancements and accessibility of the project would be too complicated and expensive to deal with. However, the severity of VAD is too significant to be overlooked, even if this project would be costly, there would also be a major improvement to children’s lives and mortality rates. By preventing the already calculated 250 million affected children (and increasing), the importance of this project should be regarded as one of the most significant as this is already a large portion of the world’s population. There would also undoubtedly be people and organizations which would donate to the cause of this project.

Another due point of the opposition is that it only targets VAD, where people who are already affected by the deficiency often have other outstanding problems which won’t be helped by the golden rice. They most likely also possess malnutrition of supplementary micronutrients. However, it would still be more beneficial to treat the problem of VAD, even if the other issues remain untreated.

Since golden rice is already extremely prominent, the project has conferred with other bio-tech industries and profit companies. This indicates that the project can be advanced and utilized without costing anything in the developing countries.

The sustainability of rice has already been proven due to the longevity of its prominence. Therefore, a question should not be raised as to how reliable and sustainable this product would be. The only difference between golden rice and white rice is the algorithm of the genetic makeup, this would indisputably pose a change to the developing countries’ diet.

In 2009 a clinical trial was conducted to test whether golden rice did successfully provide the human body with vitamin A, evidently succeeding (American Journal of Nutrition). The journal also concluded that the results for this crop portrayed to be exceedingly effective, even showing potential for this product to possess a much more significant and positive bioconversion rate in comparison to other bio-fortified crops. This also demonstrated that one cup of the golden rice would supply 50% of the required daily intake.

The majority of the opposition only provide arguments against this GMO in regards to expenses and instigation of golden rice. Whereas the supporters of this project focus on the benefit of human society and sustainability.

IRRI is a research group who has already tested the liability of golden rice, deeming it perfectly safe to consume. They have tested that the beta-carotene in this product is the exact same as the beta-carotene in natural vegetable and fruits. The inserted genes are also proven non-toxic and non-allergenic. Therefore, the product is harmless to the body and also significantly valuable to our necessities.

Bio-fortification is the process by which the nutritional value is improved through agronomic practices, conventional plant breeding, or in this case, modern biotechnology. In this case, the nutritional value in rice is increased substantially to satisfy the requirements of a human body.

In conclusion, the mortality rate of children can be drastically lowered if the introduction of golden rice succeeds and the industrial farming of this genetically modified crop is farmed globally. The pros far outweigh the cons as the intention of this product is meant to treat a very large-scale epidemic that the world combats.

Bibliography

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3. Irri.org. (2019). Golden Rice | International Rice Research Institute. [online] Available at: https://www.irri.org/golden-rice [Accessed 18 Jul. 2019].
4. Antonio Martinez, Med.nyu.edu. (2019). Genetically Modified Organisms: The “Golden Rice” Debate | High School Bioethics. [online] Available at: https://med.nyu.edu/highschoolbioethics/genetically-modified-organisms-%E2%80%9Cgolden-rice%E2%80%9D-debate [Accessed 20 Jul. 2019].
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