Golden rice, enriched with vitamin A and designed to end suffering among the world’s poorest children, has been approved in the Philippines.

Similar crops now in the pipeline could soon join golden rice, to address problems in other developing nations around the world.

PhilRice, the research institute tasked with rolling out golden rice to the Filipino market says pilot scale plots will be farmed first to boost seed supply in areas with deficiencies, before rice is available for sale in 2023.

Director General of International Rice Research Institute Jean Balié said the world-first approval represented a major shift in fixing global malnutrition.

“This milestone puts the Philippines at the global forefront in leveraging agriculture research to address the issues of malnutrition and related health impacts in a safe and sustainable way,” he said.

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Dr [James] Dale heralded the announcement as exciting for the industry and said it had implications for his project to bioengineer bananas to improve vitamin A levels in sub-Saharan Africa.

“It’s such an important technology. It’s a sustainable way to produce micro-nutrients, in this case pro-vitamin A,” he said.

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