2000), Syngenta Seeds AG was able to negotiate access to all pieces of the puzzle for humanitarian use and to provide the Golden Rice Humanitarian Board with the right to sublicense the technology to breeding institutions in developing countries, free of charge. Notwithstanding the fact that a number of patented technologies were involved in the production of Golden Rice (Kryder et al. Apart from being national in scope and limited in time, patent owners can decide to whom to license and under what terms. Patents are tools to protect commercial interests and investments, but as the Golden Rice example clearly shows, they are not an impediment to the use and dissemination of a technology among poor people. Public-Private Partnership and Humanitarian Use Free access for those who need it All depends on when the lengthy and expensive regulatory process will have been completed. There is no limit to how many locally adapted varieties can be produced in this way. Selected transgenic events containing the provitamin A-production trait have been introgressed into local varieties in the Philippines, India, Vietnam, and Bangladesh.Īfter four to six rounds of backcrossing the local parental line is fully recovered, with the only difference that it is now capable of producing and accumulating beta-carotene (provitamin A).

The first generation of Golden Rice went into the variety 'Cocodrie', while the latest was generated in a variety called 'Kaybonnet'. For more information you may contact Dr Adrian Dubock, Golden Rice Project Manager at technical reasons the Golden Rice versions donated for humanitarian use were in North American varieties of the javanica type. If biosafety regulations are not in place in the target country, consideration must be given to an implementation strategy of a regulatory framework that would allow release of Golden Rice varieties in due time. introduced by conventional breeding) into local varieties. Applications should be based on a breeding program as part of which the provitamin A-production trait is to be introgressed (i.e. Golden Rice and Intellectual Property Humanitarian Use Licencesīreeding institutions in developing countries may obtain a licence to use Golden Rice from the Humanitarian Board.

What seed to use to generate license