Harvest Time
Bio-fortifying rice to fight night and total blindness
By Sosimo Ma. Pablico
IT may take some time yet before rice grains are loaded with vitamin A, but rice breeders at PhilRice (Philippine Rice Research Institute) are pushing hard to develop varieties bio-fortified with this vitamin to help combat night and total blindness, especially among children.
“Any increase of vitamins and minerals in the rice grain can bring health benefits to millions of malnourished people who depend mostly on rice for nourishment,” said PhilRice plant breeder Emily Corpuz-Arocena.
This is because well-milled rice, which provides 80 percent of the calories we take in, has almost negligible amounts of micronutrients and vitamins, according to Dr. Antonio Alfonso, a PhilRice molecular biologist. Ironically, only a few Filipinos nowadays, including the poor, eat brown rice, which contains some micronutrients.
At present, two out of 10 pregnant and lactating Filipino women and four out of 10 children, six months to five years old, suffer from vitamin A deficiency. About four million pre-schoolers are risk of going blind and 4,000 children die from the effects of vitamin A deficiency.
Since rice is the staple food of Filipinos, vitamin A biofortification is the best solution in solving the deficiency, Alfonso said. Through vitamin A biofortification, rice varieties are developed specifically to produce vitamin A in the grains.
Biofortified rice can easily reach the rural areas and would not entail much added cost to the poor people who could not buy costly supplements and fortified non-staple foods.
Vitamin A is a very important micronutrient to humans. Among adults, micronutrient deficiency, also called hidden hunger, reduces labor productivity. Likewise, it diminishes the ability of children to learn, as well as increases death rates and disease infection. Furthermore, it reduces the livelihood and quality of life of affected individuals.
[To be continued next week.)
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