Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice), B.P. 96, Saint-Louis, Senegal.
N Biotechnol. 2013 Jun 25;30(5):426-36. doi: 10.1016/j.nbt.2013.04.004. Epub 2013 Apr 26.
Unlike the other major crops, no genetically modified (GM) varieties of rice have been commercialized at a large scale. Within the next 2-3 years new transgenic rice varieties could be ready for regulatory approval and subsequent commercialization, though. Given the importance of rice as staple crop for many of the world's poorest people, this will have implications for the alleviation of poverty, hunger and malnutrition. Thus, policy-makers need to be aware of the potential benefits of GM rice. We provide an overview of the literature and discuss the evidence on expected agronomic and consumer benefits of genetically engineered rice. We find that while GM rice with improved agronomic traits could deliver benefits similar to already commercialized biotechnology crops, expected benefits of consumer traits could be higher by an order of magnitude. By aggregating the expected annual benefits, we estimate the global value of GM rice to be US$64 billion per year. This is only an indicative value, as more GM varieties will become available in future. Nevertheless, such a figure can help guide policy-makers when deciding on the approval or funding of biotechnology crops and it may also raise awareness among consumers about what is at stake for their societies.
与其他主要作物不同，大规模商业化种植的转基因水稻品种尚未出现。不过，在未来 2-3 年内，新的转基因水稻品种可能会准备好接受监管部门的批准和随后的商业化推广。鉴于水稻对世界上许多最贫困人口的主食地位至关重要，这将对减贫、消除饥饿和营养不良产生影响。因此，政策制定者需要了解转基因水稻的潜在好处。我们概述了相关文献，并讨论了关于基因工程水稻预期的农艺和消费者效益的证据。我们发现，虽然具有改良农艺性状的转基因水稻可能会带来类似于已经商业化的生物技术作物的效益，但消费者性状预期的效益可能会高出一个数量级。通过汇总预期的年度效益，我们估计每年转基因水稻的全球价值为 640 亿美元。这只是一个指示性数字，因为未来将会有更多的转基因品种出现。尽管如此，这样的数字可以帮助决策者在决定批准或资助生物技术作物时提供参考，也可以让消费者更加清楚他们的社会所面临的风险。
