Precision agriculture, including GM crops, provides the tools to assist for
macronutrients yield, climate change adaption, and other unfavorable growing
conditions, as well as malnutrition. Adrian Dubock of the Golden Rice
Humanitarian Board presented Golden Rice as an example of a product of
precision agriculture that has a huge potential to improve micronutrient
intake, especially in areas with high prevalence of vitamin A deficiency
(VAD). The review article is published in Agriculture and Food Security
journal.

According to the article, the first challenge for the Golden Rice project is
to enable managed adoption in rice-consuming population with high incidences
of VAD. "For the Golden Rice in the mega-rice varieties (IR64, IR36, BR29
and PSB Rc82) carrying the GR2E transformation event, it is time for
scientists and rice breeders to 'pass the baton' to rice seed multipliers,
to extension workers, to public health educators, to those responsible for
children and women, for school meals services, and to health and welfare
professionals. Hopefully, philanthropy will not be so bored and exhausted by
the past 17 years, that they may assist in catalyzing this Golden Rice
adoption work," says Dubock in his article. He also predicts that in the
long run, other micronutrient traits will be combined with beta-carotene to
produce multi-vitamin and multi-mineral rice.

[agricultureandfoodsecurity.biomedcentral.com]
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