For more than 50 years, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) has been working to improve the lives of rice farmers and consumers by delivering improved technologies to farmers, especially new varieties of rice.

Golden Rice is an incredible innovation that we are proud to now be working on. It has a huge potential to help reduce the devastating consequences of vitamin A deficiency in rice-growing and -consuming countries.

I am particularly excited that our Golden Rice work, as with all our work at IRRI, is non-profit. For this, we can thank the inventors of Golden Rice and others who have donated intellectual property and supported the project financially. This will help assure that even the poorest farmers and consumers will have access to Golden Rice, just like other rice varieties. It is these people who stand to gain most from Golden Rice. But, I also hope that Golden Rice is widely consumed by all sorts of people, and that it becomes part of national strategies to address vitamin A deficiency.

We are very conscious that Golden Rice may well be one of the first genetically modified types of rice to become commercially available. As such, we are well aware of our responsibility to ensure that it is safe for both the environment and humans before it is commercialized. This project pulls together a mix of partners with different agricultural and nutritional expertise that will help us evaluate Golden Rice—an essential part of the process that will provide data to national regulatory authorities in their assessment of this new rice.

I am optimistic that Golden Rice will become an effective and safe way to help people get enough vitamin A in their diets. It is particularly exciting that Golden Rice has the potential to help the poorest people in the most vulnerable and remote communities get enough vitamin A where they currently cannot. Vitamin A helps create healthy children—and children are our future. I can think of no better investment.