How is golden rice distributed

No charges will be levied for the use of the trait. Since the inception of the Humanitarian Board, Syngenta has provided significant support in their areas of expertise, which include regulatory affairs, biotechnology research, product development, intellectual property management, stewardship and training.

He is also the person who initially negotiated the agreement with the inventors, at a time when Zeneca, one of the legacy companies which formed Syngenta in , had a commercial interest in nutritional enhancement of rice. Syngenta has no commercial interest in Golden Rice in respect of its potential use or application in developing countries.

Initially it was investigating a potential commercial use in developed countries, given the strong interest in antioxidants, but in the meantime it does not see a commercial market for it anymore. Nevertheless, the technology has been donated by the inventors and Syngenta to the resource-poor farmers of developing countries, and further development is now the responsibility of the Humanitarian Board and public institutes, which are the licensees.

Golden Rice is being introduced into publicly-owned rice varieties via national and international public sector research institutions, to be made available by government institutions, free of charge, to resource-poor farmers. The farmers will then be able to grow, save, consume, replant and sell the resulting rice crop into the local economy. No new dependencies will be created.

This is the most significant donation that Syngenta has ever made. The potential benefits that the donation could bring are very substantial but also very difficult to evaluate see for example Zimmermann and Qaim, Previous donations by Syngenta have included smaller scale projects, such as the Papaya Program in Asia, in which Syngenta and the University of Nottingham UK collaborated through the donation of technology to an Asian biotechnology program run by public-sector research institutions in Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Another example was the donation of antifungal proteins developed with the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, to benefit the post-harvest viability of bananas in Africa. Ciba Geigy, another legacy company of Syngenta, has previously donated Bt technology for insect control in rice for humanitarian purposes to IRRI, in the Philippines. The Golden Rice Humanitarian Board provides governance to the international Golden Rice humanitarian project, which is being carried out by a network of licensees and national research institutions.

The humanitarian project is a public-private partnership created by the inventors in to assist in the development and deployment of Golden Rice. The Golden Rice Humanitarian Board is responsible for the global development, introduction and free distribution of Golden Rice to target countries.

The novel trait will be bred into locally adapted rice varieties for regional use. It is intended to introduce it into publicly-owned rice varieties via national and international public-sector research institutions.

It will then be made available locally, free of charge, to resource-poor farmers. These farmers will be able to grow, save, consume, replant and locally sell Golden Rice. The Humanitarian Board is an honorary body that benefits from the expertise of international authorities, including.

Syngenta formerly Zeneca scientists contributed to the EU carotenoid research program of which Golden Rice had been a part since Syngenta supported the project by developing improved versions of Golden Rice in their own laboratories.

Initially, Syngenta then Zeneca arranged for intellectual property controlled by Novartis, Bayer, Monsanto, and Japan Tobacco to be licensed free of charge for the sole purpose of the Golden Rice Project. Syngenta, and the inventors entered into contractual arrangements whereby Syngenta licensed back to the inventors the combined package of enabling intellectual property and agreed to support them administratively in their endeavour to make the technology available to resource-poor farmers in developing countries, free of charge.

The inventors were also granted the rights to grant sub-licences for the same purpose. Golden Rice is expected to become widely distributed through the farmers' own supply and exchange networks.

The contractual arrangements will guarantee free access for farmers to the technology. Farmers can keep the seeds for future sowing. This will reinforce seed distribution in a virtuous circle. Instead of a new contract being introduced, a side letter was added to the original agreement.

This letter contains certain new conditions that had become necessary, because of the substantial costs of regulation and licensing. Because of the immense costs involved, the Humanitarian Board needs to make sure that just one transformation event makes it through the regulatory process.

The selected and approved event can then be cross-bred with any locally preferred variety. Patents are national in scope, not international. In the US, a complex intellectual property situation exists around Golden Rice technology, which is not replicated in Europe or in developing countries. Analysis of the patent issues surrounding the initially invented Golden Rice has determined a far less complex position in developing countries than that previously reported by some analysts.

Critics of the project originally mentioned more than 70 patents involved and potentially blocking the development of Golden Rice , a figure derived from a study conducted by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications Kryder et al.

While the numbers are in principle correct, only 12 of these patents relate to developing countries, and all have been waived by their owners. The remaining patents do not restrict the inventors' freedom to develop the project for the benefit of developing countries.

The new constructs donated to the humanitarian project do not require access to any additional third-party intellectual property. The technology will be provided to international and national research organisations in developing countries under licence. The Humanitarian Board will provide strategic guidance in the application of the technology to locally adapted public rice varieties and the carrying out of biosafety and other assessments.

The transformed seed has already been introgressed bred into regionally preferred public rice varities. The Humanitarian Board will continue to grant licences, as they judge appropriate, to the National Agricultural Research Centres and other public sector research institutions, in developing countries. The National Agricultural Research Centres and related breeding enterprises in each country will distribute rice to resource-poor farmers. There will be no extra charge for the trait.

Ultimately, it will be up to governments to ensure the free distribution to farmers. Syngenta has donated not only the first generation of improved Golden Rice GR1 , but also a further improved version GR2. GR1 had four times more carotenoid than the prototype version generated by Potrykus and Beyer in Ye et al. While vitamin A supplements have found their way into many afflicted countries, roughly 20 percent of children under the age of five remain deficient in the Philippines.

To fill in the gap, researchers have pushed for the introduction of low-cost crops rich in beta-carotene. Much of the resistance in these countries and others, Le Page writes, has come from groups campaigning against GMOs and their alleged negative effects on health.

As safety assessments continue, Bangladesh may be next in line. VAD in the Philippines has been highest in Mountain Province , where farmers are unlikely to plant lowland rice varieties, and in part of metro Manila where no rice farming occurs. To reach undernourished kids in areas like these, Golden Rice would have to be grown by commercial farmers and sold in markets. Farmers choose from a large and rapidly changing array of rice seeds, based on agronomic performance, market demands and local trends.

Some might adopt Golden Rice if it could fetch a premium in the market, but extremely poor customers are unlikely to pay it. Farmers may need subsidies to plant Golden Rice, but it is unclear who would pay them to plant it. The Philippines has managed to cut its childhood VAD rate in half with conventional nutrition programs. If Golden Rice appears on the market in the Philippines by , it will have taken over 30 years of development to create a product that may not affect vitamin levels in its target population, and that farmers may need to be paid to plant.

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