MANILA, Philippines - Researchers have started trials for genetically
modified (GM) Golden Rice as prices of the grain soar internationally and
importing nations fret about possible shortages. Gerard Barry, the
co-ordinator of the Golden Rice Network, said on Thursday that field testing
on the GM rice, enriched with Vitamin A, started last week in the
Philippines.
?We are at the beginning of the process,? said Barry, who works at the
Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).

IRRI has said that Golden Rice, which is meant to improve nutrition in
the developing world, may be available to farmers by 2011.

But other GM varieties of rice could be produced commercially by
countries such as China, India and the US before then, if they were to
change current policy, increasing yields and potentially easing some of the
pressure from tight world supplies. ?Countries that have been field-testing
for many years and have the technology could start production in the not too
distant future,? said Barry.

There is as yet no GM rice grown commercially due to lingering
scepticism about possible health risks but Barry, a former head of rice
genomics at Monsanto, said GM technology needed to be considered as part of
the solution to a potential global rice shortage.

?You should look at GM if you want to be responsible for increasing
food production,? said the native of Co. Cork in Ireland.

?If the need is to increase yields and whether GM traits can increase
yields, especially if it also reduces inputs, then you have a double win,
you increase food availability but also you reduce farmers? costs.?
Nearly half the world?s 6.6 billion people depend on rice to survive
and demand for the grain is expected to increase 50% by 2030.

So far this year, average rice prices have more than doubled to $780 a
tonne as exporting nations cut shipments to cool domestic inflation, traders
speculate and countries such as Bangladesh, which have been hit by bad
weather, increase demand. Encouraged by the high prices, farmers in the
world?s two biggest exporters, Thailand and Vietnam, are working feverishly
to plant more rice, which should help calm some of the global rush in coming
months.

While GM crops including cotton, a source of vegetable cooking oil,
are grown widely in North America and parts of South America, some
countries, particularly in Western Europe, remain sceptical about their
safety.

But Barry said attitudes were slowly shifting with even farmers in
Germany, with its strong environmental lobby, growing a small amount of GM
maize. ?It?s clear that there is a change going on,? he said.

In the Philippines, one of the world?s biggest importers of rice,
approval for commercial production of GM varieties remains years away
despite the government?s difficulty in sourcing enough of the grain to meet
its annual requirement. ?We have a tough regulatory process, because of the
controversy,? said Leo Sebastian, executive director of the
government-funded Philippine Rice Research Institute.

?But there is a high acceptance of GM rice based on our surveys.? The
Philippines was the first Asian country to commercialise GM corn and
Sebastian said in the long-term GM technology would be one part of the
solution, along with better farming investment and population control, to
increasing production of rice.

?It?s not the only answer. Even if we have the Golden Rice variety it
will not solve all of our problems. Bit it will be one of our solutions.?


[economictimes.indiatimes.com]