The Syngenta position

The "Golden Rice" project provides one potential method of addressing the serious health problems caused by Vitamin A deficiency, particularly in some developing countries. It is not a substitute for existing efforts to tackle the problem, but could substantially complement them in the future. The first Golden Rice harvest and field trials took place in September 2004 in the USA. Further field trials are expected to be carried out during 2005 in Asia.
In October 2004 Syngenta announced the donation of new Golden Rice seeds and lines to the Golden Rice Humanitarian Board. The donation marked World Food Day on October 16 and the UN’s International Year of Rice. It follows the previous Syngenta donation of "license free" rights and technologies to the inventors.
The company is totally committed to the ultimate humanitarian aims of the project, and will freely provide regulatory, licensing and other “private sector” expertise to ensure that the technology is implemented in a legal, ethical and environmentally responsible manner, and that through its continuing commitment to the project the most appropriate and effective strains of rice are developed to help counter the devastating impact of micronutrient deficiency in developing countries.


Background

The inventors of Golden Rice are Professors Ingo Potrykus of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and Peter Beyer (University of Freiburg, Germany). They showed that it is possible to produce rice that contains a precursor to vitamin A (pro-vitamin A). A Humanitarian Board headed by Professor Potrykus now administers the project.

Research into Golden Rice continues amid increasingly encouraging results from field trials and tests. The aim is to produce rice with sufficient levels of pro-vitamin A to provide clear beneficial health effects for people with vitamin A deficiency. The whole process is still expected to take several years, principally due to the complex characteristics of the relevant national regulatory procedures.

The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) is using local varieties of Asian rice in this research. IRRI is an autonomous non-profit organization. Its work focuses on improving the well-being of rice farmers, particularly those with low incomes, in all rice-growing areas of the world.

In the course of the Golden Rice project, funds have come from various sources. They include the Rockefeller Foundation, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, the Swiss Federal Office for Education and Science, an EU biotechnology program, The World Bank (via HarvestPlus), the Gates Foundation (directly and via HarvestPlus), USAID, the Syngenta Foundation and Syngenta (the company). The Swiss Development Agency also provides “in kind” support.

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