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Biography |
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Adrian Dubock PhD is Swiss, with public and private sector experience, as a farmer and a range of international agri-business responsibilities.
• 2000: proposed and negotiated the architecture of the Golden Rice project. Still works to bring the humanitarian not-for-profit vision to fruition.
• 2008-14: Advisory Board of the Institute of Advances Studies, Freiburg University, Germany
• 2013: Recognised personally by Scientific American World View for bringing philanthropy to industry.
• 2015: Collected from the White House a Patents for Humanity Award, for the Golden Rice Project.
• 2016: Participated in a WHO/FAO consultation on micronutrient biofortification.
• 2016 - Board of the Borlaug Training Foundation.
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Abstract |
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Biofortification: What, Why, How. |
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Plant breeding has been practiced since humans stopped being hunter gatherers around 12,000 years ago. Science and innovation have driven crop yields, ahead of human population growth. But macronutrient yields of carbohydrate, proteins and fats are insufficient.
Micronutrients, minerals and vitamins, are also needed in the human diet for human health and well-being.
Staple cereals are principally carbohydrate, an excellent energy source, but containing little or no micronutrients. Cereals are cheaper than the animal products and coloured fruits and vegetable which are rich sources of micronutrients. So, micronutrient malnutrition is often associated with poverty.
Globally, 795 million people still suffer from chronic hunger and 2 billion people (about 27% of global population) from micronutrient malnutrition” .
In 1999 ‘proof-of-concept’ was achieved for the first purposefully created ‘biofortified food’: Golden Rice was produced using transgenesis . In its current form Golden Rice contains two new genes one from maize and one from a common soil bacterium .
The term “biofortification” was first used in a scientific paper published in 2000 , and later defined in 2004: “’biofortification' is a word coined to refer to increasing the bioavailable micronutrient content of food crops through genetic selection via plant breeding".
By 2003, Harvest Plus (‘H+’) had attracted significant funding. Initially identifying target populations, and deciding what levels of iron, zinc and pro-vitamin A needed to be delivered, they then proved the feasibility of biofortification. Breeding and variety release of a first wave of biofortified crops followed . Purposefully, H+ avoided any involvement with transgenic crops, so as to avoid the associated ideological controversy . H+ has, and continues, to introduce a range of biofortified staple crops globally, recognised by the award of the World Food Prize to its Director, and others in 2016 . H+ are now concentrating on ‘mainstreaming’ the adoption of biofortified crops through multiple partners.
In the meantime, Golden Rice, having overcome scientific and political challenges, has been formally recognised as safe to consume by regulators , and is poised to be available for adoption in the first Asian countries as an additional intervention for vitamin A deficiency, responsible for 23 – 34% of global under 5 years child mortality and the most important cause of childhood blindness iv.
And H+, having failed to achieve target levels of high iron and zinc in rice by ‘conventional’ breeding, have surpassed them by finally overcoming their reluctance and embracing transgenesis .
G20 Ministers. G20 agriculture ministers meeting Communiqué. 2016.
http://www.g20.utoronto.ca/2016/160603-agriculture.html
Ye X, et al. Engineering the provitamin A β-carotene biosynthetic pathway into (carotenoid-free) rice endosperm. Science 2000;287(5451):303–5.
Paine J, Shipton C, Chaggar S, et al. Improving the nutritional value of Golden Rice through increased pro-vitamin A content. Nat Biotechnol. 2005;23(4):482–7.
Welch RM, Breeding Strategies for Biofortified Staple Plant Foods to Reduce Micronutrient Malnutrition Globally. Presented as part of the symposium “Plant Breeding: A New Tool for Fighting Micronutrient Malnutrition” given at the Experimental Biology 2001 meeting, Orlando, Florida, on April 1, 2001. 2002 American Society for Nutritional Sciences. pp 495S-499S
Welch RM & Graham RD Breeding for micronutrients in staple food crops from a human nutrition perspective. Journal of Experimental Botany, Vol. 55, No. 396, pp. 353±364, February 2004.
DOI: 10.1093/jxb/erh064
http://www.harvestplus.org/about/our-history
Dubock A. An overview of agriculture, nutrition and fortification, supplementation and biofortification: Golden Rice as an example for enhancing micronutrient intake. Agric Food Secur. 2017. doi:10.1186/s40066-017-0135-3
Anonymous. World Food Prize 2016.
https://www.worldfoodprize.org/en/laureates/2016__andrade_mwanga_low_and_bouis/
http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/code/applications/Pages/A1138GMriceGR2E.aspx ; http://ableag.org/amedia/australia-new-zealand-permit-sale-of-gm-golden-rice-with-gmo-labelling/ ;
https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/food-nutrition/genetically-modified-foods-other-novel-foods/approved-products/golden-rice-gr2e.html
Dubock A. Golden Rice—Instructions for use. Agric Food Secur. 2017. doi:10.1186/s40066-017-0136-2
Trijatmiko K, Dueñas C, Tsakirpaloglou N, Torrizo L, et al. Biofortified indica rice attains iron and zinc nutrition dietary targets in the field. Scientific reports, vol. 6, article no. 19792. 2016.
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