GM Golden Rice “could save a million kids a year”

Claims

Genetically modified “Golden Rice” has been engineered to produce beta-carotene, a precursor to vitamin A. Professor Ingo Potrykus of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and Professor Peter Beyer of the University of Freiburg, Germany started the research on Golden Rice in 1982 as a Rockefeller Foundation-funded initiative. In 1999 they succeeded in their attempts to use genetic engineering to add genes from daffodil and a common soil bacterium to rice, making it produce beta-carotene.¹⁸ In the year 2000 they announced the development in a scientific journal. The paper highlighted Asia, Africa, and Latin America as regions that could benefit from the rice, due to the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency.¹⁹ Since at least the year 2000 Golden Rice has been promoted as a solution to vitamin A deficiency and the health problems it causes (notably blindness) in the developing world.

Professor Potrykus himself was to become a spokesperson for Golden Rice in the years that followed. Golden Rice first hit the headlines in 2000, when the cover of TIME magazine featured a photograph of Potrykus with the headline, “This rice could save a million kids a year”.²⁰ The then US president Bill Clinton said, “If we could get more of this Golden Rice, which is a genetically modified strain of rice, especially rich in vitamin A, out to the developing world, it could save 40,000 lives a day, people that are malnourished and dying.” ²¹

According to Adrian Dubock, an executive of Zeneca (now Syngenta, the company that once hoped to commercialise Golden Rice in richer countries,²² and which is currently owned by ChemChina) there was no time to lose: “One month delay = 50,000 blind children [a] month.” ⁵

An article on CNN emphasised that Golden Rice was ready to be deployed: “GM food scientists have already developed a yellow rice, or ‘golden’ rice, that is rich in vitamin A and iron and helps prevent anemia and blindness, especially in children.” ²³ An invitation from the United States Congress to a Special Congressional Forum, “Can biotechnology solve world hunger?”, went further, declaring that “‘Golden Rice’, which has been modified to include certain vitamins… is already saving the sight of thousands of children in the poorest parts of Asia.” ²⁴

“Crime against humanity”

Over a period of many years, the public relations campaign for Golden Rice has used the phrase “crime against humanity” to describe the opposition to GM rice from civil society groups and the regulations around the world that require new GMOs to be subjected to safety testing and risk assessment before marketing. In the view of the advocates of GMO Golden Rice, it is these civil society groups and regulations that have prevented the rice reaching the poor of the world and helping to solve the problem of vitamin A deficiency.

Examples of these claims include Potrykus’s presentation at the BioVision conference in Lyon in 2005. Titled, “Is GMO over-regulation costing lives?”, the presentation said, “GMOs are so over-regulated that they cannot be used for solutions of humanitarian problems. We, our society, has [sic] the responsibility of de-demonising GMOs. If not, history will hold us responsible for avoidable death and suffering of millions – a crime against humanity” (see Figure 1).²⁵

Figure 1.  Presentation by Ingo Potrykus at the BioVision conference, Lyon, 2005: “Is GMO over-regulation costing lives?”

Potrykus has claimed that the reason why the rollout of Golden Rice was so long delayed was because it was being obstructed by excessive regulation of GM crops. According to Potrykus, Golden Rice was ready to be deployed in 2002. The abstract of a presentation he made to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 2009 said that although Golden Rice “will not reach the farmer before 2012”, “If Golden Rice were not a GMO… development and registration would have been completed by 2002. The difference in time between traditional variety development and that of a GMO-based variety of ten years is due to routine, regulatory requirements. This difference translates, on the basis of the calculated impact, to far more than 400,000 lives lost.” ²⁶

In a similar vein, Andrew Apel, an agricultural biotechnology industry consultant, journalist, and former editor of the biotechnology industry newsletter AgBiotech,²⁷ claimed in 2009 that the critics of Golden Rice may be responsible for more deaths than Stalin during the Great Famine in the Ukraine in the early 1930s, in which millions died.²⁸ The implication was that opposition to Golden Rice represents an even greater crime.

Another advocate of Golden Rice, Bruce Chassy, a University of Illinois professor who, it later transpired, was given more than $57,000 by Monsanto to promote GMOs,²⁹ stated in 2010, “Not to have disseminated the seeds of GR [Golden Rice] until now has allowed as many people to die silently as were killed in the holocaust”. ³⁰

In 2013 The Hindu newpaper in India reported a visit to that country by Nobel prize winner Richard J. Roberts (whose prize was unrelated to agriculture): “Describing the protest by ‘green’ parties in Europe against GM crops as a ‘crime against humanity’, he particularly drew attention to the project to produce a GM rice variety for tackling the problem of vitamin A deficiency in India and other countries.” ³¹

A 2014 media article cited a University of California report as laying “the blame for the international prohibition of producing Golden Rice through genetic engineering (GE) to powerful forces that hide behind environmentalism”. The article said the genetic engineering process for making Golden Rice “has been well understood since 2000, but efforts to gain approval have been opposed by powerful regulators, particularly in India and Bangladesh… The authors of the UC report point out that the creation of Golden Rice could have saved millions of lives and avoided blindness, vulnerability to childhood infections, anaemia and poor growth in millions since the engineering process for adding the vitamin was discovered in 1999.”

The article laid the blame squarely at the feet of a single environmental group: “The researchers recall that the nearly worldwide objection to creating Golden Rice was led by Greenpeace.” ³²

In 2016 George Church, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, said: “Golden Rice was a tough call strategically for Greenpeace and some of their associates… A million lives are at stake every year due to vitamin A deficiency, and Golden Rice was basically ready for use in 2002, so it’s been thirteen years that it’s been ready. Every year that you delay it, that’s another million people dead. That’s mass murder on a high scale. In fact, as I understand it there is an effort to bring them to trial at The Hague for crimes against humanity.” ³³

In 2016 over 100 Nobel laureates wrote an open letter demanding that Greenpeace end its opposition to Golden Rice.³⁴ The letter campaign was organised by Nobel laureate Richard Roberts, chief scientific officer of the biotechnology company New England Biolabs.³⁵

A 2019 article for Foreign Policy magazine blamed the delays in Golden Rice deployment on the precautionary principle. This principle, which has been incorporated into law in many regions and countries and is an explicit part of international agreements such as the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, allows governments to take restrictive action on GM products even in a situation of scientific uncertainty, in order to protect health or the environment. Foreign Policy magazine said: “The effect of the principle has been to slow the pace of biotechnology research and development – and in some cases even to halt it, at least temporarily, at multiple times during the research and development process.” ³⁶

Results

During the years when the above claims were made, Golden Rice was at no point “already saving the sight of thousands of children”.

In answer to the Nobel Laureates’ accusation in 2016 that Greenpeace was blocking the deployment of Golden Rice, Greenpeace responded, “Accusations that anyone is blocking genetically engineered ‘Golden’ rice are false. ‘Golden’ rice has failed as a solution and isn’t currently available for sale, even after more than 20 years of research. As admitted by the International Rice Research Institute, it has not been proven to address Vitamin A Deficiency. So to be clear, we are talking about something that doesn’t even exist.” ³⁵

Indeed, as late as 2017, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the body that gained a licence for non-commercial use of Golden Rice in 2001,³⁷ stated that Golden Rice still had to be “successfully developed into rice varieties suitable for Asia, approved by national regulators, and shown to improve vitamin A status in community conditions.”⁷

Low levels of beta-carotene

The initial problem holding up Golden Rice’s deployment was the low levels of beta-carotene in the crop. The first generation of GM Golden Rice (Golden Rice 1 or GR1), produced with daffodil genes, produced only small amounts of beta-carotene. Syngenta scientists measured a maximum level of only 1.6 micrograms/gram total carotenoids (the family of pigments of which beta-carotene is one) and commented that “The limited production of pro-vitamin A in Golden Rice is cited in the media as the major hurdle to the success of this particular solution for vitamin A deficiency.” ⁶

These facts contradicted the claim of Zeneca’s Adrian Dubock, made in 2000: “The levels of pro-vitamin A that the inventors were aiming at, and have achieved, are sufficient to provide the minimum level of pro-vitamin A to prevent the development of irreversible blindness affecting 500,000 children annually, and to significantly alleviate Vitamin A deficiency affecting 124,000,000 children in 26 countries.” ³⁸

The co-inventor of Golden Rice, Ingo Potrykus, conceded in 2001 when Greenpeace criticised the low level of provitamin A obtainable from the rice: “I am happy to acknowledge, that Greenpeace is arguing on a rational basis… I also acknowledge, that Greenpeace has identified a weak point in the strategy of using Golden Rice for reducing vitamin A-deficiency… We will know for sure of course only, when all the standard biosafety assessments have been performed… we need far more data, than we have to date.”

Potrykus also said, “We are, of course, also working on an increase in provitamin A concentration, and there are several possibilities we are testing.” He added, “We have good reasons to believe, that the approach has a fair chance to be successful. We have to be patient for a few years, until this can be verified or falsified.” ³⁹

In the same year, Gordon Conway, the head of the Rockefeller Foundation, which has funded the development of Golden Rice,⁴⁰ wrote: “The public relations uses of Golden Rice have gone too far. The industry’s advertisements and the media in general seem to forget that it is a research product that needs considerable further development before it will be available to farmers and consumers.” ⁴¹

As the full extent of “the public relations uses” of Golden Rice became apparent, it triggered a critical response in parts of the media. The food writer Michael Pollan, for instance, wrote of “The great yellow hype” in the New York Times.⁴² The author and social activist Naomi Klein published an article in Canada’s Globe and Mail titled, “There’s nothing like a feel-good bowl of Golden Rice. Or not”.⁴³

Golden Rice 2

The problem of low levels of beta-carotene continued until 2005, when Syngenta, which was assisting in the development of Golden Rice, introduced a new variety of the rice, called Golden Rice 2 (GR2). In the new strain, the Syngenta scientists replaced the daffodil genes used by Potrykus with a maize gene that produces a higher amount of beta-carotene. In their paper published in 2005, beta-carotene levels in GR lines were measured at up to 36.7micrograms/gram of dry rice, depending on which GR2 event was being tested.⁴⁴

This development only occurred three years after Potrykus claimed Golden Rice was ready to go into farmers’ fields. 

Notably, in 2018 the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a favourable “no questions” letter concluding its review of Golden Rice 2. However, the FDA noted that the concentration of beta-carotene in a line of Golden Rice called GR2E was still “too low to warrant a nutrient content claim” in the US.⁴⁵

A “no questions” letter indicates that the agency has reviewed all the data submitted by the applicant and has no further questions about the safety of the food or ingredient. In such a letter, the agency notes that the applicant self-determines that the food or ingredient is “Generally Recognised as Safe” (GRAS).⁴⁶ A “no questions” letter is not legally required for selling GM foods or other food products in the US and the FDA review is a voluntary process. Many companies self-affirm GRAS status and then start selling their food or ingredient.⁴⁷

IRRI countered the FDA’s conclusion about low beta-carotene levels by stating that it is based on the fact that Americans eat far less rice – approximately 45g/day – than the per capita daily consumption of rice in the Philippines.¹ However, the FDA’s remark is a reminder that Golden Rice in the diet has not been shown to successfully reduce vitamin A deficiency in target malnourished populations.

Addressing the FDA’s comment about low levels of beta-carotene in GR2E, nutrition expert Professor Marion Nestle wrote: “The daily value for beta-carotene is complicated because it is a precursor of vitamin A; 12 micrograms of beta-carotene are equivalent to one vitamin A unit. The standard for adults and children is 900 vitamin A units or 900 x 12 for beta-carotene = 10,800 micrograms. One serving of Golden Rice must provide less than 10% of that amount (1,080 micrograms). For comparison, one small carrot provides about 4000 micrograms of beta-carotene.” ⁴⁸

Beta-carotene levels still low, degrade during storage

While the beta-carotene levels in Golden Rice 2 are an improvement on those in Golden Rice 1, they are still relatively low when compared with commonly available foods. A 2019 study found that beta-carotene levels in GR2 were 7.13 to 22.81 µg/g fresh after harvest.⁴⁹ The highest level, 22.81 µg/g, translates to 2281 micrograms of beta-carotene per 100g rice. That is roughly equivalent to the lowest level of beta-carotene found in leafy green vegetables (2199 μg/100g) in an analysis of commonly eaten vegetables and fruits in India. Most of the leafy green vegetables analysed had far more beta-carotene than Golden Rice – for example, amaranth leaves had 7753 μg/100g and coriander leaves had 5566 μg/100g. Some fruits had higher levels: Alphonso mango had up to 11789 μg/100g.⁵⁰ Carotenoids in general and beta-carotene in particular are naturally abundant in a wide variety of commonly eaten plants.

Moreover, the beta-carotene levels found at harvest in Golden Rice 2 varieties have been found to rapidly degrade to lower levels if the rice is stored after harvest. After just six months of storage in the presence of air, even at the low refrigerated temperature of 4 degrees C, the beta-carotene degraded by around 68–79%. At a more normal Asian temperature of 25 degrees C, degradation was higher – around 80–84%. Cooking further degraded the beta-carotene, by about 17–24%.⁸

The scientists concluded that the best way to preserve the beta-carotene content of Golden Rice was to vacuum pack it as unprocessed rice complete with the hull (though unprocessed rice is not eaten in Asia). Under these conditions, at 25 degrees C, just over half (54%) of the original beta-carotene was retained, versus only around 20% under non-vacuum packaging (air packaging) at the same temperature.⁸

Having to adopt any storage method beyond putting the rice in a bag and keeping it in a dry place would rule out the utility of this GM product in the developing world. Refrigeration and vacuum packing will not be available to most of the people that make up the target recipients of Golden Rice.

Disappointing yields

In 2014 IRRI reported results of field trials of Golden Rice 2 in the Philippines. IRRI stated: “Preliminary results were mixed. While the target level of beta-carotene in the grain was attained, average yield was unfortunately lower than that from comparable local varieties already preferred by farmers… The initial results indicate that more research is needed, with greater focus on increasing yield.”

Referring to the repeated calls of GMO advocates for a rapid rollout of Golden Rice, IRRI wrote, “All the organisations involved in the work on Golden Rice appreciate the sentiments of those calling for a more rapid introduction of a healthier, beta-carotene-enriched rice variety, but the developments described above will result in a delay in the timeline.” ⁷

Technical problems persist

GM traits, such as the beta-carotene content of Golden Rice, must always be crossed into high-performing conventionally bred varieties in order to be successfully commercialised. In 2017 Indian scientists reported the results of crossing Golden Rice event GR2R1 into the Indian rice variety Swarna. The resulting GR2 plants were stunted, showed extensive abnormalities in their growth, and had reduced grain yield, as compared with the non-GM Swarna variety.

The researchers identified several potential reasons for the unexpected effects. First, the genomic insertion of the new gene constructs disrupted the plant’s own gene for transporting a key growth hormone. Second, the added gene constructs were not, as intended, active solely in the kernels, but also in the leaves. Their misregulation led to perturbations in important and complex metabolic pathway involved in the synthesis of other key plant hormones, as well as carotenoids and chlorophyll. The authors claim the combined effects of the disrupted plant gene and the misregulated transgenes caused the reported abnormalities seen in the GR2 plants – which included pale leaves, poor growth and low yields.⁵¹

Food safety testing

The food safety risks with GM foods in general are the presence of novel toxins or allergens or altered levels of existing toxins or allergens.⁵²

In the case of GM Golden Rice, an animal feeding study looked at the acute toxicity of one of the two enzymes that were engineered into the rice to produce the beta-carotene. For the study, the enzymes, which are not naturally found in rice, were expressed in genetically modified E. coli bacteria, not in Golden Rice. This means that, through a process known as post-translational modification, they could have been structurally different from the same enzymes as produced in Golden Rice, with different toxicological and immunological profiles.⁵³ Just one of the two enzymes was fed to mice in a double dose over a single day, with the effects being followed up for just 15 days. The authors reported that there were no adverse effects attributable to the enzyme, based on observation of a limited number of parameters: abnormal behaviour, general appearance, death, gross lesions (examples might be obvious inflammation or tumours), or treatment-related changes in body weights.⁵⁴

However, such acute toxicity testing cannot reveal the medium- or long-term effects that might occur from consumption of Golden Rice over an extended period of time. Golden Rice has never been tested for longer-term effects on health. Scientific concerns have been raised in relation to Golden Rice and other GM nutritionally enhanced foods that derivatives of beta-carotene are toxic, can cause birth defects, and might accumulate in fat over time.⁵⁵

Nutritional testing

Beta-carotene must be converted in the body to vitamin A and this conversion only takes place in the presence of sufficient fat in the diet. Two scientific trials were conducted on humans to test the effects of Golden Rice 2 on vitamin A levels (Tang et al 2009 ⁵⁶; Tang et al 2012 ⁵⁷), in which Golden Rice was fed to the subjects in a single meal. These studies respectively concluded that beta-carotene derived from Golden Rice is effectively converted to vitamin A in humans and that beta-carotene in Golden Rice is as good as pure beta-carotene in oil and better than beta-carotene in spinach at providing vitamin A to children.

However, for the studies, the Golden Rice was immediately frozen at -80 or -70C to prevent loss of the apparently easily degraded beta-carotene. It was then fed to the study participants with 10% or more butter or oil, to enable the conversion of beta-carotene to vitamin A. These facts raise questions about how these conditions would be met in developing countries with malnourished populations.

Subsequently, in 2015, the 2012 paper reporting the results of the scientific trial in children ⁵⁸ was retracted by the journal publisher after the scientists failed to provide proof that they had obtained informed consent for participation in the experiment from the children and their parents. In addition, there were “eligibility issues” regarding two of the study subjects ⁵⁹ and allegations that ethics approval documents had been faked.⁶⁰

Alternative strategies

Golden Rice has consistently been targeted at the Philippines. But during the years that research on Golden Rice was ongoing, the country managed to reduce its vitamin A deficiency problem using more traditional approaches. According to the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI) of the Philippines, the country was successful in cutting vitamin A deficiency in children aged between 6 months and 5 years of age from 40% in 2003 to 15% in 2008.⁶¹ Measures used include vitamin A supplements, which, according to the World Health Organisation, are extremely cheap, with an estimated cost of US$ 1–2 for delivery per child per year.⁶² Rates of vitamin A deficiency were still at around 15% in 2018–19.⁶³

A World Bank report identifies disease and poverty as the main causes of malnutrition in the Philippines. It recommends improved access to diverse and healthy foods, access to clean water and sanitation, access to contraception to prevent adolescent pregnancy, and improved child health care. Golden Rice is not specifically mentioned as an actual or potential solution.⁶⁴

Will farmers plant Golden Rice?

Technical issues aside, there is the further question of whether farmers will plant Golden Rice. In 2020 Glenn Davis Stone and Dominic Glover published the findings of their survey among Philippine farmers assessing their willingness to plant the crop. They found that many families with Vitamin A deficient children do not have rice land to plant it and the varieties in which the Golden Rice trait was expected to be available have declined in popularity, meaning that “commercial rice farmers may not choose to plant GR varieties unless they are offered specific inducements to do so”.⁶⁵

Regulatory authorisations

Golden Rice 2, known as genetic modification event GR2E, has been approved for consumption by government regulators in Australia (in 2017), New Zealand (2017), Canada (2018), the Philippines (2019), and the USA (2018). In the Philippines, government regulators approved the use of a GR2E variety called Malusog in food, feed and processed form in December 2019 and for cultivation in 2021.⁶⁶ According to IRRI, in the Philippines, “Pilot-scale deployment is ongoing, with limited seeds distributed for planting in target provinces. Breeders at IRRI and DA-PhilRice continue to breed the beta-carotene producing Golden Rice trait into a range of popular inbred local rice varieties readily acceptable by farmers and consumers.” ⁶⁷

Court stops cultivation

A ruling in April 2024 by the Philippines Court of Appeals revoked the permit, granted in 2021, to grow Golden Rice in the Philippines. In response to a petition led by MASIPAG, Greenpeace Southeast Asia–Philippines, and others, the Philippines Court of Appeals ordered the Department of Agriculture to refrain from commercially propagating Golden Rice until proof of safety and compliance with legal requirements is shown; to declare all biosafety permits for Golden Rice null and void; and to perform independent risks and impact assessments, obtain the prior and informed consent of farmers and indigenous peoples, and implement liability mechanisms in case of damage, as required by law.⁶⁸

In August the court upheld its earlier decision.⁶⁹ In November DA-PhilRice appealed.⁷⁰ As of June 2025 there are no further updates on the case.

Need for seed certification

In 2022 Golden Rice was registered with the National Seed Industry Council (NSIC) as NSIC 2022 Rc 682GR2E or Malusog 1.⁷¹ However, in 2023 it had not yet been bred to the level of “certified” seed.⁷² A PhilRice report of February 2025 suggested that it still had not achieved certified status, stating, “DA-PhilRice… will continue to lead the distribution and commercialisation of Malusog Rice once it has been cleared from any legal, regulatory, and certification requirements”.⁷³

Certification is a long and involved process, with requirements for special field cultivations conducted under prescribed conditions. The fields are inspected by officials, who take and test samples.⁷⁴

This process is not a special requirement for GMOs – all seeds submitted for certification go through it. Certification is voluntary, but it seems that the organisations behind Golden Rice want to pursue it. According to PhilRice, as of November 2023, seed certification guidelines for Golden Rice were “being finalised” and certification was considered a prerequisite to deployment.⁷⁵

Companies

As noted above, Syngenta has been involved in the development of Golden Rice from the early stages, negotiating licences for the use of technology from other sources, including Monsanto. Syngenta received an exclusive licence for commercial use and in return supported the humanitarian use via the inventors (Potrykus and Beyer), under specific terms, for developing countries.¹³

Syngenta retains commercial rights to Golden Rice, although it reportedly has no plans to commercialise it.¹⁴

Potrykus and Beyer established a “Golden Rice Humanitarian Board” to oversee the development of the technology and grant non-commercial licenses to public research institutes. IRRI gained a license for non-commercial use from the Golden Rice humanitarian project in 2001, aiming to spread the use of the crop throughout Asia.³⁷

Patents

The technology behind the original Golden Rice (made with the daffodil genes) was developed in 1999 by the public scientists Ingo Potrykus and Peter Beyer, with financial support from the Rockefeller Foundation.¹³ Potrykus and Beyer published their results in January 2000.⁷⁶ They licensed the technology to Syngenta and assigned the company the patent rights.³⁷

The intellectual property “cornerstone” ⁷⁷ patent on Golden Rice 1, on which Potrykus and Beyer are the inventors and Syngenta the owner and applicant, was granted in 2006 and expired in 2020.¹⁶ Syngenta filed the patent on Golden Rice 2 in 2004; it was granted in 2008 and expired in 2024.¹⁷

In addition, in 2001 Potrykus said he was surprised to learn that there were 70 intellectual property rights (IPRs) and technical property rights (TPRs) belonging to 32 different companies and universities, which he and his colleagues had used in their experiments and for which they would need licences “to be able to establish a freedom-to-operate situation for our partners”.¹³ Syngenta negotiated the licences from other sources, including Monsanto, to make the technology workable. Syngenta received an exclusive licence for commercial use and in return supported the humanitarian use via the inventors, under specific terms, for developing countries. The cut-off line between humanitarian and commercial use was agreed as USD 10,000 income to the farmer from Golden Rice.¹³

Author: Claire Robinson. Reviewer: Jonathan Matthews. Scientific reviewer: Dr Allison Wilson.

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