Can Golden rice eradicate vitamin A deficiency?
VARIOUS KINDS of transgenic rice are being developed for a range of characteristics. These are developed to be used both as food as well as for industrial purposes. Among these, nutritional enrichment has been receiving considerable attention especially in India. Among all the transgenic crops, transgenic rice is claimed to provide maximum benefit to the consumer while other crops provide benefit mostly to the producer. . Nutritional Genomics has been applied to rice for the development of Golden rice, iron enhanced rice and rice with enhanced proteins and amino acid. The proponents of Golden rice claim that its consumption provides the required vitamin A dose to prevent nutritional blindness in populations where xerophthalmia is endemic. Although the initial experiments with Golden rice appear to indicate potential for alleviating vitamin A malnutrition, there is a need to examine in depth several factors before accepting this technology as an intervention strategy. The total dietary
