 Similarly, we would look at deficiencies in people related to iron and zinc in the same way. So these are potential targets where we say a GM solution should be or should be part of an integrated solution. It is never going to be a silver bullet that can get rid of that problem itself. So if we say go in rice and we want to have people eating go in rice, it is to bring up their base supply level in beta carotene by at least 50%. And in addition to that, of course, we also want to promote or others should promote diverse diets, eating other sources of healthier food that has also vitamin A, the same as other vitamins. So it is part of the solution. We see it as a part of an integrated solution, not a single silver bullet. We only do it in cases where there is a big humanitarian need. So that's for us the primary reason why in some cases this is the only choice to do. We have no commercially interested in the public sector. Erie is a non-profit organization, Phil Rice, who leads the work in the Philippines here as a public function. In the case of GM Rice that is developed through the public sector effort, there will be no profits, no commercial winners or interests at all. These varieties in which we are developing this are popular existing varieties that are widely grown by farmers and consumed by consumers. That is one of our requirements. We just upgrade them with these additional genes to give them therefore healthier rice features in this case. Farmers can keep the seed, they can regrow it. The yields and other agronomic performance characteristics must be the same. You cannot have a yield penalty because that would not be an incentive for a farmer to grow this rice, or you would actually lose income there. So the market price of this material when it comes on the market some day hopefully, it needs to be low because our target group is to poor consumers. Not the rich person, the middle class person, another pang or manila who can eat other sources of vitamin A. So we have clear specifications which are quite different from how a private company would approach a generic modified crop. So we are a public entity, we have a pro-po focus, the material is popular varieties and these are our primary beneficiaries. So I just wanted to explain this because it is fundamentally different from what has been so far available in terms of GM crops worldwide. Thank you Dr. Doberman. Any directly related questions to what has been said so far? You're going to hold sir? Indirect. Let's reserve that for the further discussion that we're going to have in just a few. A direct question sir? Yes please. I would like to ask Dr. Doberman. If he is as optimistic as Secretary Argyll, then this country will be self-sufficient in rice. Because I remember Dr. Robert Ziegler said that this country cannot achieve rice efficiency. I received this question a couple of years ago and I gave an answer which was then misinterpreted by the media. So I'll try to give another answer this time. I believe that like any other country the Philippines is capable of being self-sufficient in rice. There are of course always questions surrounding the nature of self-sufficiency. The first question is I think how much rice is actually going to be needed? There is a debate always going on in terms of the capital consumption and the actual demand. In principle given the current level of population consumption and the available land resources that are on the rice array and the existing yield gaps that we still have I believe in principle this country can be self-sufficient. How fast and what it takes to close that yield gap and go from an average yield of 4.2 tons to 5 tons or more. That is of course the question that depends on the level of investment both by public and private sector. But in principle we still have quite a yield gap that we can exploit in this country. The bigger long-term question is of course how long can you be self-sufficient if the country keeps growing at a rate of 2 to 2.5% each year in terms of population. Then obviously you are in a constant race against time. And it is my hope personally having lived in this country for 15 years that the new reproductive health bill that was recently passed will finally have some impact on that component of the demand. But these are changes that go along with economic growth and also behaviour change but they would have a huge impact also on the rice supply and demand situation. But I believe in principle it is possible. Thank you Dr. Doberman. And thank you for the question and the response which were directly relevant in a tangential sort of way. So the last point that Dr. Doberman made was that why GM rise is the answer to that is really when there is a big humanitarian need. And to talk about a particular variety which Dr. Doberman also discussed, which is golden rice, we have Dr. Antonio Alfonso, the coordinator of the biotechnology program of the Department of Agriculture of the Philippines. Thanks Tori. Good afternoon everyone. So let me tell you about the golden rice and the golden rice project in addition to those that have been mentioned by our team. Golden rice is genetically modified rice that was developed to make rice more nutritious by having the ability to produce the pro-vitamin A carotenoid called beta carotene in the grains. So the beta carotene in golden rice is the same nutrient that is found in fruits and vegetables and is converted into vitamin A inside our body. We are evaluating golden rice as an additional strategy to address vitamin A deficiency. Vitamin A deficiency is a form of metronutrient malnutrition also called hidden hunger. Many people particularly young children and pregnant and nursing women are vitamin A deficient. Vitamin A deficiency causes children to go blind and vitamin A deficient people may also get sick and even die because their body have reduced ability to fight certain common infections. In the Philippines for example, vitamin A deficiency affects 1.7 million children. People who rely on rice as their staple food are particularly vulnerable to vitamin A deficiency and that's because rice is not a source of vitamin A. While other strategies are affecting in reducing vitamin A deficiency, this health problem continues to adversely affect many people, especially those living in areas that are hard to reach or those who have little means to have a diverse diet. Because rice is so widely produced and consumed in the Philippines and in Southeast Asia, improving its nutritional value could vastly improve people's nutrition. Results from studies so far are very encouraging. For example, it has been reported that one cup, just one cup of golden rice a day, would provide one half of an adult's vitamin A daily requirement. Through the project, through the golden rice project, leading nutrition and agricultural research organizations are working together to further develop and evaluate golden rice as a potential additional strategy to reduce vitamin A deficiency in the Philippines and initially also in other Asian countries. There are four major objectives under this humanitarian and not for-profit project. Number one, we aim to develop locally-adapted varieties that meet farmer and consumer preferences. The same traits that were mentioned, yield level, pest resistance, grain quality and so on. Number two, we want to help establish the safety of golden rice because we want golden rice to have no unwanted effects to humans, animals and the environment. Number three, we want to help evaluate whether consumption of golden rice improves vitamin A studies. So later on, there will be a community level nutrition study, but that's after biosafety approval has been obtained. And number four, we want to ensure that if golden rice is deployed, it will reach the poor and those who are most in need. Golden rice is expected to have the same price as golden rice because the technology has been donated. This is a humanitarian project. Golden rice will grow just like any ordinary rice in the field. It will not require any additional chemical inputs or additional care. And farmers will be able to see it from their harvest and juice them in the following season. So what we hope in this project is for golden rice to be introduced eventually in the Philippines by field rice and other partners as another approach to fighting vitamin A deficiency if golden rice is proven to match farmers' consumer expectations for high quality rice, proven to be safe, proven to improve vitamin A status and accessible, affordable to those who are most in need. Let me summarize by stating that vitamin A deficiency is still a public health problem in the Philippines and golden rice is a potential strategy to help address vitamin A deficiency to be used in combination with other interventions. Thank you very much. We have a comment from Twitter which says the sound of the utensils is distracting. So I believe that brings us the close of the short statements from our panelists and now we would like to open up the session for discussion. If you don't mind, maybe we can take three questions at a time and then field them to the time. Yes, Nandini? In the research, I'm the editor of the science page of Business Mirror and also I'm a member of the board of the Philippine Science Journalist Association. My questions are, I have two questions. One is, so what is the status of the golden rice now? And although bitty rice is not being developed by Erie, so maybe also know the status of bitty rice of China. And number two, what are the other researches on GM rice which Erie is planning to have? Does it have other plans to develop other GM rice? And the other researches on rice, although maybe not GM, that Erie is doing now or planning to do that could adapt to climate change. Since two questions have been asked, perhaps just one more before we give it to the panel. Yes, sir. Good afternoon. I'm Marilo Aziz of 702 DZES. I'm particularly concerned about the safety of golden rice. Can you answer categorically how safe is golden rice for human consumption? Thank you. Questions are, status of golden rice, bitty rice in China, other research on GM rice and safety of golden rice? Okay, maybe I start and then he and Tony can add a few other things. I'll start as of golden rice, so I'll walk you through the process there. So we work coordinated by Erie, ourselves. We work in parallel with three countries at the moment, the Philippines, Bangladesh and Indonesia. There's a separate network of institutions in India, public institutions, and also, I believe, in China. But we focus on these three countries at the moment, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Philippines. And each of these countries has a slightly different process because of the different regulatory requirements in each country. These are national policies. So there are some similarities and information that we can use in all three countries, but there are some differences among the countries. The process involves, here in the Philippines, as a first step, so-called biosafety approval for feed and food use. So this is a big dossier that includes a huge amount of information on what the genetic modification is and also how it behaves and also any kind of safety-related issues also in terms of human consumption. So, including questions such as whether it could cause allergic reactions or what are the proteins in there that have been changed. So it's a complex dossier that has to be evaluated by the National Biosafety Committee and they would then make a recommendation whether this golden rice would be approved for feed and food use, at which point one can produce it to actually conduct than other studies related to its impact on human health that we want to demonstrate on the nutrition status of people. You cannot feed people this golden rice before you have that biosafety approval. So all of these trigger. So then another stage is what is called the propagation approval. So meaning also by the Philippine authorities, if you have that approval then you can actually grow it freely in the field without having a different level of protection as a present where we have to do everything in very confined, very guarded situations. So then the final step is the normal variety release approval. Like any other new variety in the Philippines, a golden rice variety which will probably be PSPRC82 equipped with golden rice gene will have to go through testing and meeting the performance criteria of the release of a new variety. That's the process. Then if that would happen at that stage, it can go into seed production and dissemination to farmers. So we're basically talking, when you look at this whole process, several more years. How fast exactly I'm not prepared to say because that depends also how fast these initial approval stages can be done. Seven more years, not seven. Definitely not seven. So that's the process. And we are on a very comparable timeline in other countries. So it is conceivable that a few years from now it should be reaching the intended target population. Sir, where are we now? Are you in the multi-location field trial? The multi-location trials, we've had the third round that just completed this season. So as you have noticed, one of those trials in Bikul was destroyed, but that was one out of five. So we are now in the process of completing the dossier, dossier for submission for biosafety approval. So it's the first step. So that should happen in the very near future. And the multi-location trials, that's over now. That's done. Well, there will be later of trials because of the variety of the lease process. But at the moment, this is what we have to do to meet the requirements of the process. For submission. So you are in the public aid program? No, we're in the stage of submission soon for the biosafety approval. Now, it is possible to have the biosafety approval together as a propagation approval. You can actually choose to submit those at the same time. But at the moment, we are working on both. Doctor, maybe a comment on BT Rise in China, since this was asked. Yuri, it's stopped working on BT Rise more than 10 years ago. We don't work on it actively anymore, but of course colleagues in China and also in the private sector and other countries have continued developing BT Rise. And the performance evaluations have pretty much been completed in China. They have shown a consistent decrease in pesticide use by farmers as a result of growing BT Rise. And that is one of the primary intentions of that particular gene, reduction in spraying. So it is now for the Chinese government to make the final release decision. So that's not for me to comment on, but I expect that very soon there will be a decision of some kind. Because China obviously has a strong interest in improving the environmental performance and also health of its consumers. And for that particular environment it could be a much needed intervention. Other research we do on GM Rise at Yuri, I think Sophie mentioned that when you look at our entire portfolio of research at Yuri, we have an annual budget of about $90 million right now. Less than 10% probably only 5% is actually directed towards the development of GM Rise. So Golden Rise is one, the second one that we are actively working on is enrichment, we have made a huge breakthrough this year is enrichment with iron and zinc. Iron and zinc. So micro-nutrient deficiencies. So we have now a concept that could lead to the development of, let's say a healthy RISE that is rich in beta-carotene, iron and zinc some day. Is it GM? That would be GM, yes, because we don't get the iron and rich amount of it anywhere near that level. It's more than 20 ppm of iron and more than 50 ppm of zinc. So that's one. And the last one, there is a blue sky research we do and this is what we call engineering the photosynthesis of RISE. So that's a blue sky thing because we call it C4-RISE, C4, let us see, number 4. In nature there are crops which have a very efficient photosynthesis mechanism, C4. Chococaine is one, maize, surrogum. And there are crops which have a less efficient photosynthesis, RISE, wheat, soybean. We're trying to understand the genes controlling the more efficient photosynthesis and we hope that by transferring those into crops like RISE we could increase the yield by 30 to 50%. And also the water use efficiency and nitrogen use efficiency. But that's a long-term project. It will take another 15 years until we know whether that works or not. So it's not going to be a GM product anytime soon. I'm sorry, I think we need to include other people in the bill. We'll get back to that. Dr. Alfonso, would you like to comment on the safety? Thank you for the question on safety. I'm going to tell you it's one of the C4-RISE. It's not only by the public and also the regulators but also by the project team. It's very important. Also because I'll be consuming Golden RISE means when it gets approved also my family and friends of safety is very important. So there are international standards in the evaluation of many products including GM for food and feed safety evaluation. So these internationally accepted guidelines and principles are being adopted by the local regulators here in the Philippines. So in the safety evaluation basically they are comparing Golden RISE and ordinary rights, in this case PSB, RC-82. They look at the composition. They look at all other things. Are there changes in terms of composition and others between Golden RISE and PSB, RC-82? So we evaluate safety. I mean regulators evaluate safety by comparing between the two which should be a safe ask. Although theoretically it's possible to develop even better, even safer craft but the standard is that the GM products should be a safe ask the ordinary rights in terms of evaluation. Yes, a question from Australia? Good afternoon. Australia has a yard and a grocery and Philippine science studies. With the GM RISE farmers can produce their own foods. Unlike with the beauty crops where farmers will depend upon the supplier of seeds the companies that supply the seeds. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. Just to answer that, that's correct because it's going to be in the background of what we call an inbred variety so you can keep your seed and you can grow it again. Thank you very much. But the reason why you cannot plant again seeds from the harvest this season for the next season it's because it's a hybrid it's not because it's genetically modified in maize. Yeah, so it's not because it's genetically modified that farmers cannot plant the seeds again. They can if this is an inbred just like the case for gardeners. So we have an online question on golden rice still are you confident that it would be the right trade off to clearly state let me try to reinterpret this of vitamin and golden rice as a seed.