Golden Rice

I. Introduction

1 Introduction Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is a major problem in large parts of the developing
world. An estimated 250,000 to 500,000 VA-deficient children go blind every year. Apart from
acute eye symptoms, VAD also weakens the immune system, thus increasing the incidence and
severity of infectious diseases and infant mortality rates. For adults, the implications can be
serious, too, especially for pregnant and lactating women. Nearly 600,000 women die from
childbirth-related causes each year, many of them from complications that could be reduced
through better provision of vitamin A (Sommer and West, 1996). The most affected population
groups are the poor, whose diets are predominated by less nutritious staple foods on account of
lacking purchasing power and limited awareness. During the last decade, a lot of efforts have
been made to reduce VAD in developing countries. Food fortification, supplementation, and
dietary education programs have been undertaken. A complementary approach is to enrich major
staple foods with provitamin A through plant breeding. For some crop species, such as maize and
sweet potato, cultivars or landraces with high beta-carotene contents were identified, which can
be used in traditional breeding programs. However, beta-carotene does not occur naturally in the
endosperm of rice – the major staple food in large parts of Asia. Hence, for rice, the use of
biotechnology is required (Bouis, 2000). Recently, so called Golden Rice (GR) has been
developed through genetic engineering to produce beta-carotene in the endosperm of the grain
(Ye et al., 2000; Beyer et al., 2002). This technology could contribute to improving the VA
status of the poor. Although GR is still at the stage of research and development (R&D), it is
already surrounded by a lot of public controversies. Some optimists praise it as the solution to
overcome malnutrition and VAD. Others denounce it as a mere child of the biotech lobby and
consider it a useless and rather harmful innovation for the developing world. This study aims to
analyze the potential benefits of GR in the Philippines. VAD constitutes a serious problem in this
country. Moreover, the technology was recently transferred to the Philippine-based International
Rice Research Institute (IRRI), where adaptive research is now being carried out. GR has not yet
been released for commercial application, so the study takes an ex-ante perspective. Since the
main merit of GR is its potential to improve the health and nutrition status of rice consumers, the
methodological challenge is to appropriately combine issues of agricultural and health
economics. At first, an analytical framework is developed to conceptualize the study and identify
key issues that might affect the impact of the innovation. Apart from technological features, the
adoption by farmers and acceptance by consumers will play an important role. Then, health
problems resulting from VAD in the Philippines are described and classified. The social costs
associated with these health problems are quantified using the methodology of disability-
adjusted life years (DALYs). These costs are expressed in DALYs lost. In a further step, DALYs
to be gained through GR are calculated, and a preliminary cost-benefit analysis of the R&D

"Golden Rice will poison our lands," said Melanie Guavez, a rice farmer from Camarines Sur,
the southeastern tip of Luzon, where Manila is located, who also leads the anti-GMO alliance
SIKWAL-GMO. Her home province was the site of pilot planting back in 2013. In August of
that year, Guavez and hundreds of other farmers uprooted the crops in protest before the harvest
could be evaluated by authorities.

"The government doesn't inform any of us about the negative effects that Golden Rice can have
on our lands and livelihood," said Galvez. "They try to trick us with Band-Aid solutions and
half-truths. They say that they'll help us with our pesticides, seeds, etc, but they are trying to get
rid of traditional planting methods."

Dr. Rey Ordonio, Golden Rice project leader at PhilRice, told Nikkei Asia, we are simply
providing Golden Rice as another inbred variety that farmers can choose to plant. Golden Rice
has been developed for humanitarian purposes and we deliberately developed it as an inbred just
like conventional rice varieties to ensure it will be affordable and accessible to farmers and
consumers." Such purebred rice varieties still represent most of the genetic varieties of rice
commonly grown in the Philippines.

Ordonio assured consumers that Golden Rice is completely safe. He based that on a 2016 report
from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine in the U.S., which surveyed
almost 900 studies and publications attesting that genetically modified crops are not dangerous
 II. Body

Guavez said that growing Golden Rice requires an overreliance on pesticides and herbicides that
ordinary farmers cannot afford. She said the whole initiative will plunge farmers into debt. To
pay off their mounting loans, she fears that indebted farmers will sell their land to big
corporations that hover like vultures over anyone willing to let go of their property. Galvez fears
that over time, the Bicol region's agricultural areas will be more vulnerable to corporate
takeovers.

"Big business will benefit from this, not us," she said. "We are trying to protect our local seeds
and our lands. Why do we need something cooked up in a laboratory? The government should
support local initiatives instead."

Giovanni Tapang is the dean of the University of the Philippines College of Science and the
chairman of Advocates of Science and Technology for the People (AGHAM). He aimed at the
biotech industry.

Projecting the Benefits of Golden Rice in the Philippines 13 Disability weights for different
diseases were specified together with the interviewed health experts in the Philippines. For night
blindness, the disability weight is 0.15, for Bitot’s spot, it is 0.25, and for Corneal ulceration,
Corneal scars, and blindness, it is 0.5, equal across the three target groups. These figures are
consistent with values used in other studies in a similar context (e.g., World Bank, 1994). Sub-
clinical levels of VAD have a disability weight of zero because there are no immediate
symptoms. However, since they are associated with increased mortality rates, their costs are at
least partially considered in the DALYs calculations. In countries where VAD presents a risk for
the population, 10% of all deaths from tuberculosis, measles, pertussis, malaria, diarrhoeal, and
respiratory diseases among children under five are attributable to VAD (World Bank, 1993).
According to our expert interviews, 6% of all female deaths in the Philippines between the age of
15 and 49 are of pregnant women caused by VAD, and 4% of all maternal deaths are of VA-
deficient lactating women. Figures on overall death rates were taken from recent official
statistics (NSCB, 2000). The average age at death for children is assumed to be one, and for
pregnant and lactating women, it is assumed to be 35. Following international standards.
 III. Conclusion

This paper has analyzed the potential benefits of Golden Rice in the Philippines. VAD is a severe
problem in this country, causing increased morbidity and mortality, especially among children
and pregnant and lactating women. The analysis showed that the annual VAD-related health
costs are in a magnitude of 0.5% of the Philippine GNP. GR has the potential to reduce these
costs. There are numerous factors influencing the impact of GR. The amount of beta-carotene in
the grain, post-harvest losses as well as bioconversion to VA affect the technology’s efficacy.
Producer and consumer acceptance are crucial for the coverage rate of the innovation. Since GR
is still at the stage of R&D, we used different data collection techniques to come up with realistic
assumptions on key parameters. We delineate a pessimistic and an optimistic scenario for the
simulation of future effects, supposing that the true benefits will lie somewhere in between. In
the pessimistic (optimistic) scenario, 1,514 (8,738) cases of blindness and 152 (941) premature
deaths per year can be averted. In monetary terms, the annual gain is around $23 million and
$137 million in the pessimistic and optimistic scenarios, respectively. Although these are very
significant benefits, it must be stated clearly that GR alone will not eliminate VAD.
Micronutrient deficiencies are caused by a complex set of economic, social, and cultural factors
so a technological approach cannot be considered a magic bullet. The purpose of developing GR
is not to substitute for other interventions such as food fortification, supplementation, or dietary
education programs. Rather, technology should be seen as a complementary tool in the fight
against VAD. GR is particularly promising for remote rural areas, because, after the initial R&D
investment, the cost and institutional effort to reach the target population is much lower than for
other interventions. A preliminary cost-benefit analysis shows that R&D expenditures for GR are
a highly profitable investment. Depending on the assumptions made, the internal rate of return
lies between 81% and 152%. These returns are higher than for many crop breeding projects
focusing on the improvement of agronomic traits. Of course, the benefits of agronomically
improved crops and micronutrient-dense staple foods are different in nature. While the former
shows up in terms of increased real incomes for agricultural producers and consumers, the latter
consists primarily of a reduced burden of disease for society in general and affected population
groups in particular. These benefits might be less visible, but our analysis demonstrates their
high economic significance. Micronutrient-dense crops are an efficient way to reduce deficiency
problems among the poor, and related research projects should receive higher political priority.