From golden rice to drought-tolerant maize and new techniques controlling plant disease - can we expect a breakthrough in crop production?

Abstract

This Minireview paper summarizes the views of the authors on the history and current status of golden rice – the highly promising concept of introducing new genes into existing rice strains to make them capable to accumulate beta carotene (the biochemical precursor of vitamin A) in the grain. Based on the questionable success of genetically modified organisms to achieve a significant increase in food and feed production we speculate on the possibility of a breakthrough in this area via the latest discoveries in molecular biological techniques.

Keywords

• Golden rice
• genetically modified organisms
• genome editing
• CRISPR
• food security
• nutrition
• fortified rice