WEBVTT

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[sil.]

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Previously in Life…

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We can develop (inaudible) society economically,
financially if don\'t have good health.

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There\'s a real danger that we are
actually undermining the next generation.

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There are still 32,000
children under the age of five

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dying every day across the world from totally
preventable causes, totally preventable.

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[sil.]

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Blindness and eye disease have long
been linked with lack of Vitamin A,

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far less well known is the road it plays in
children\'s resistance to common childhood illnesses.

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Without enough Vitamin A in their bodies,
children can\'t fight off respiratory infections,

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diarrhea, or measles. Two million
die every year as a result.

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In northern Uganda, before the
introduction of routine immunization,

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and Vitamin A distribution schemes,
children regularly ended up in hospital.

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At one stage, I was keeping the children\'s ward
and routinely daily we sign the certificates

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for children dying from measles, from…
from malaria, from diarrhea regularly.

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And I felt that well, and… and half of the
ward was full of nothing but measles cases.

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And we took up the challenge
into going to public health,

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and within five years of concerted effort,

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we\'re able to reduce the
incidence of measles annually

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from what 25 to 30,000 in
the northern region alone

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to less than 5,000 a year. In public health,
our concern is preventing these diseases.

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And Vitamin A provides
us with that opportunity

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in strengthening their
resistance to disease.

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[sil.]

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Since 1996, the Canadian government has provided a
billion Vitamin A capsules through a UNICEF program.

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National Polio Immunization
and Child Health Days

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provide a vital thread in the Vitamin A distribution network
which now reaches nine out of ten children in the country.

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In the northern region, volunteers
distribute capsules to under fives

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and mothers of newborn babies.

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[non-English narration]

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You know farming depends on the rain. So once
the rain start, I start work on the farm,

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but when it ends, I can
do this volunteer work.

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It is role as vital, while the donation of capsules
is key to the Vitamin A distribution program.

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It\'s continuing success relies heavily

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on the goodwill of Iddi and volunteers like him.
As he a mirthful believes that it will continue.

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These village volunteers were
already given health services.

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They were involved in the Guinea
Worm Eradication Programme.

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And, of course, the health uh… workers are part
of the health delivery system. And therefore,

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I already going into the communities
and I interact with these children.

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Teachers are also part of the Guinea education
service. So it is existent structures

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couple with an intensive information,
communication, and education programme

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to ensure that our target of
population also constantly

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reminded of the importance to go
for capsules by not only that,

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but also eat Vitamin enriched foods.

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Vitamin A is found in variety of sources,

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dairy foods, fish and liver,
dark green leafy vegetables,

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fruits like mango and
papaya, and red palm oil.

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But the price of some of these foods, as well as their
availability make changing traditional diets a slow process.

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[sil.]

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The challenge after the supplementation. They had challenge is
to find out whether it can become a regular part of their diet.

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And that comes with a
change in uh… the cultural

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habit of what they eat, and
how they prepare their food.

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You remember the last time we came, and one
with prepared porridge we added palm oil,

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and we made it in the chief\'s house. This is palm
oil. And we bought some fish and meat as well.

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We bought some vegetables so
you could use that as well.

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You can choose either.

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And we try to teach them to use food we\'re
cooking. And one of these was preparing porridge

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and then adding red palm oil.

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And this a new turn to both
of the (inaudible) because

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under (inaudible) they think
porridge goes with sugar.

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But because I wanted to encourage the (inaudible)
to give more or vitamin enriched things

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to get children, we introduced the
foliage with red palm oil to them

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We try to encourage the (inaudible) to also

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eat more green leafy vegetables.
And because

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we find out that these leaves are available in
the village. They normally dry these leaves,

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not eating them very phrase. So we encourage
them to prepare the leaves in their green form

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which I mean, will help to
improve upon their Vitamin A.

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In another part of the world, in Guatemala,
they\'ve come up with a different solution.

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They use sugar to deliver
synthetic Vitamin A.

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It was the fight to save children\'s eyes that drove doctors
to embark on a rocky road to government legislation,

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and get the sugar industry to agree.

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It came to points sometimes like they…
some… some guy came to me and said,

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\"Listen, how many cases you have
now?\" Okay, how much does it cost

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to get corneas and to transportation?
Okay, how much?

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Well, right now about $260,000 I mean can sell
us which that time was dollars in the one way.

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And he says, \"Okay, when we\'re
going to give it to you? But stop

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trying to fortify sugar. That\'s much
more expensive.\" Well, I got you.

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There people can to that point
in… in fighting back one single

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and chip measure of public health.

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And uh… of course, you know, what
we did was just to announce it

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because it was terrible.
And it was a change

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that what I mean I was going to be pioneer.

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Although fortification of sugar
started in 1974, it was sporadic.

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It wasn\'t until the 1990s that the sugar
industry had finally accepted that they too

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had a responsibility to public
health across the country.

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I went to all the sugar mills. And I took
samples from the children that live there,

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and I showed them the result
with their own children.

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It was like the… the children in the family. And
they knew that they were (inaudible), they knew uh…

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that they were improving on that. And then
there was a big fight after that because

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money was concerning. And another one we\'re
talking about $30 million worth of Vitamin A,

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it was a large amount of money.

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And umm… Just by chance

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uh… I saw the figures on how much
they were selling, and what amount?

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It was a huge amount of money.
And we thought and look

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if you sell this much, this is nothing for you. It\'s a
fraction of one percent of what you\'re going to spend there

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and the benefit will be so large

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that you may as well be nice and often
do it. And they bought the idea

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that I never thought that I was
going to be so much impact.

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Even though I believed in
fortification, and I thought that

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the eyes were going to be the ones
that really would get uh… healthier.

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But to know what you see
statistics in Child Survival.

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Unfortunately, we see now, also around
the world where it has been used

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that this is the main wall
that we get from Vitamin A.

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These preventive missions

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which can reach a very large
population with children

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definitely will save money because… because

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when you see a child like

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just looking into blindness,
a child that goes blind.

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How much does it cost to the state

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if they are going to have
40, 45, 60 years of life

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that would be really very
expensive for the society?

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There is some western criticism
of sugar as a Vitamin A carrier.

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But Guatemalans claim fortifying sugar

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is the best way of reaching the maximum number of people
because it\'s such a basic part of the national diet.

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But it doesn\'t reach everyone.

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With such a scattered population
in rural areas in particular,

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one in five Guatemalans miss out and they\'re
usually those living in the poorest conditions.

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[non-English narration]

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The most usual problems we have with the
children here are respiratory problems,

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diarrhea and intestinal parasitic infections.
These are the most frequent problems we see.

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The longer time goal is food.

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Just improve the quality of food
of the people, to improve the diet

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with the… with that they shouldn\'t
have any problems or anything.

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You know, but this is a big order, eventually,
may happen, but it is a big… big order

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because you may go to places where you see that
the people are so poor and they cannot do much,

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and the conditions of soil are
so extremely poor so that

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only very few things that they can grow. The steel
if they could improve on that they could work.

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The Charity Action Aid

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works with many people in developing countries. And it agrees
that food is the long term solution to Vitamin A deficiency.

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No single micronutrient
deficiency exists in isolation.

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Most of the people who suffer from Vitamin
A deficiency, also suffer from all other

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types of deficiencies say in lodine, etc. So a
food based strategy is a much more integrated way

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of tackling the problem. In addition, I think uh…
if you\'re talking about food based strategies,

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you\'re also dealing with locally available
foods, and you can… you can uh…

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make it appropriate to local
dietary habits, and patterns.

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Bangladesh\'s a celebrated example of where this is seems to
be working at a very large scale, almost three million people

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covered with uh… small scale kitchen
gardens, and not just for people with land,

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but even for landless people using embankments
uh… you know, common… common land,

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as well as uh… poultry, for example.

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[sil.]

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Plant Bio-technologist Emeritus Ingo Potrykus doesn\'t
believe the existing Vitamin A programs are enough.

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He\'s devoted the last 10 years of his professional career to
developing genetically modified rice that contains Vitamin A.

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In 1999, he grew the first
successful golden rice.

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The beauty of umm… genetic
engineering is that the

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entire technology is built into the seed.
And if the farmer gets one seed,

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he can go up to seed,

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one plant produces about thousand seeds.
It can go thousands plants.

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And then you can produce fields and
fields and fields. This is technology.

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This is (inaudible) anybody, any license
or feeling responsible to anybody.

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Today, the technology has
cost $2.6 million dollars.

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The Rockefeller Foundation which funds many sustainable
agriculture programs in developing countries

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also funded the initial
research into golden rice.

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I don\'t understand it\'s still the best one it\'s one
of a whole range of things that we have to do.

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We have to uh… supplement
as I\'ve said already.

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We have to increase the range
of foods that people eat.

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Uh… Those are the kinds of things we have
to do. But I think that the Vitamin A rise

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will in particular get to poor families uh…

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in more remote places.
How will that happen?

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Well, lot of them grow it themselves or they\'ll be able to purchase it, but
uh… in the… in the most remote places, we would expect that they would…

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the rice that they grow would be the Vitamin A rice. And
then anyway, they would grow that rice for their children.

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Our biggest concern is umm… the extent
to which people themselves are involved

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in the process of deciding whether or not,
you know, it should go ahead. Umm… and

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we have… we have… we\'re also dealing with a
great deal of uncertainty about the health,

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and social, and environmental effects of uh…
golden rice. We don\'t really know enough about it.

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And of course, there\'s this very
practical question of, you know, as to

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where the people would be, you know, particularly in South
Asian, Southeast Asia which are the big rice consuming bears

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as to where the people would want to go in for a sort of yellow tainted
rice when they way used to dealing with, you know, polish rice.

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Now which is very white
and colors, you know.

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My possibilities do not go
beyond offering for free

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is our (inaudible) what we have produced.

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If uh… Some people decide as they
want blind children and white rice,

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it\'s their decision. I\'m offering
a possibility of yellow rice

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and uh… no blind children.

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What\'s the decision about
people want, it is \"yes\".

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Seventy patterns owned by some 32 companies, and
institutions have been used in developing golden rice.

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But Ingo Potrykus is confident after
a difficult year of negotiations

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that farmers won\'t have to
pay for this technology.

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Now as we have regional state where we have
(inaudible) agreement of all important

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pattern told us to give free
license as for this purpose.

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I\'m (inaudible) so that uh… the farmers will get
this material free of charge and free of uh…

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any kind of obligations, uh…

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any uh… dependencies from anybody.
It\'s clear.

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Astra Zeneca is going to do all the bio-safety
testing. And he\'s going to get the pattern sorted out.

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And it was promised that the uh… Vitamin
A rise, and the Vitamin A technology

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will be available for uh… plant breeding
institutes in developing countries,

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in the Philippines, and in
Durham, Bangladesh, and so on.

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Uh… And I believe it will do that. And that\'s what it said
it will do. But of course, we have to keep the pressure on.

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Uh… There should be a spotlight shown on
those companies, and uh… that\'s where

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I think activists are particularly important role to play is
to make sure that multinational developed their promises.

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Ultimately, the whole debate on umm… GM uh…

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and Vitamin A rise is not any different in that
sense, is… is a debate about control, and dependency.

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And uh… you know, for example, we
understand that a lot of the uh… rice

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which has been year marked for Vitamin
A uh… sort of modification are ones

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which are also dependent on Agro-chemicals,
and irrigation. So the whole, you know,

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the… the problem of shifting control from poor
farmers to larger corporations, and forces

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beyond their control is a big concern. And uh… and
it\'s… it\'s almost like a vertical chain of dependency

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that\'s created every time the whole
new technologies introduced.

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I want to say that we are not at all against
technology in… in an absolute sense,

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obviously, not I mean, technology has brought many benefits. But
at the same time, you know, we are very concerned as to, you know,

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where the poor farmers will
keep losing control over time.

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During cleaning, poor farmers themselves in the
global debate on genetically modified crops,

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actually set up an unprecedented meeting in southern
India this year. Scientists, government officials,

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NGOs and biotech corporations
sat down with the farmers

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to discuss a full range of
issues on food security.

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So what we are saying is probably we\'re selecting the very elite
plants and multiplying by this kind of methods of tissue culture.

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Maybe, you can… farmer can have
plantations which are of better quality.

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So this… our experimentation shows there\'s
a great potential in this technology.

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On the key part of traditional
seeds in my village

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when people need them, they come to me because
I have varieties of seed no one else has.

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In the future, I want to conserve
even more varieties of seed.

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Now a stage has been reached when the
farmers will have either to spray

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or they will have to pray. So we
have reached such a situation today.

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Now it is during this situation

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that the transgenic technology seems to
have come for the rescue of the farmers.

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When the Green Revolution came, you
said it was a safe technology,

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but soon we had a lot of problems with the
pollution. Now you say biotechnology is best.

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How can we be sure that after 10 years,

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it will not backfire in a similar way,
and we will again be the victims?

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We are not people who are saying that let\'s go
back to nature. Let\'s not use modern technology.

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We\'re saying that use
technology very carefully

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in line with principles which
maintain the ecology of the region,

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and also technology in
control of the people.

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Most of the jury wanted
to stop, put to GM crops

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until extensive field trials have been
carried out for at least five or ten years.

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Since we have the real practical knowledge, farmers like
me should be made active participants in these trials,

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not only in yield
assessments, but in safety

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environmental and other aspects.

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We think that in relation to Vitamin A rice, it\'s very
important that we go through these kinds of processes

00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:24.999
at… at a reasonably large scale where people
themselves can give their views on it.

00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:29.999
And that\'s why, you know, increasing the awareness
of people who themselves of their own rights,

00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:34.999
I mean in… in this context, I mean the rights we\'re talking
about uh… for example, the right to have a choice,

00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:39.999
a real choice, not monopolis in
agricultural markets, is a… is a real right

00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:44.999
which… which gradually people are losing
out on uh… a right to uh… you know,

00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:49.999
have uh… self-reliance, you know, to depend on themselves,
rather than depending on… to depend on other people,

00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:54.999
the right to access to land. These are the types of rights
which people have to be aware of and start claiming.

00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:59.999
Uh… There\'s no shortcut, I don\'t think.

00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.999
Another very key factor in relation to Vitamin A deficiency, as
you know, is whole question of water, sanitation and hygiene

00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:09.999
because uh… if we introduce Vitamin A

00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:14.999
and people are unable to absorb it because of
poor water, sanitation, and diarrheal conditions.

00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:19.999
Umm… There… there cannot be a solution
which is, you know, in isolation.

00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:24.999
We are going to have to do umm…

00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:29.999
the right kinds of tests, health tests, environmental
tests. And that\'s what will now be done

00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:34.999
to ensure that this is going to be
as safe as one could make it. Uh…

00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:39.999
I think it will come out uh…
pretty sights what I can make out.

00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.999
Do you have any concerns about the uptake of Vitamin
A from the golden rice, five people only make rice?

00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:49.999
Well, I\'m not sure about that. I mean, I think that\'s
the kind of health tests that have to be made.

00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:54.999
But umm… the health experts have looked out
at the moment, don\'t seem to be concerned,

00:21:55.000 --> 00:21:59.999
but we… we need to look at that more.

00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.999
Ingo Potrykus is aiming to distribute the golden rice
to plant breeders, and farmers in the next three years,

00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:09.999
and he\'s not content with just rice.

00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:14.999
We got that patent producing uh… poor
Vitamin A containing cold plans,

00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:19.999
not only rice. Beyond
(inaudible) helping to

00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:24.999
transfer the same type and to reap until
African white males depend on them,

00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:29.999
say potato, cassava, avocados.
In 10 years from now,

00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:34.999
say maybe, uh…

00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:39.999
how\'s it made us stay (inaudible) and
poor if disregard to (inaudible) applied.

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.999
If it took him about let\'s say the next five to ten
years, umm… they\'re very concern that, you know, the…

00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:49.999
the other technologies for dealing with Vitamin A deficiency,
or for dealing with nutritional deficiency generally,

00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:54.999
is…are not lost in the meantime.

00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:59.999
And that adequate investments which are made uh… in…
in the whole question of sustainable agriculture,

00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:04.999
public health, water, and sanitation, you know, all of
which affect the nutritional status of poor households.

00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:09.999
Gordon Conway agrees
there\'s no magic solution.

00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:14.999
He believes that all avenues
have to be explored.

00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.999
Phenomena is by farther most
important to the deficiencies.

00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.999
We\'re talking about millions of children a year
are dying because of Vitamin A deficiency.

00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:29.999
It\'s not just the fact that many of them go blind, it\'s
a fact that they die because they don\'t have resistance

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:34.999
to umm… disease it. What we discovered, I mean,
discovered this only about 10 years ago,

00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:39.999
is that children who get uh…
a diarrhea or infection

00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.999
tend to die, if they don\'t have
a good supply of Vitamin A.

00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:49.999
And that was the discovery that made
everybody concentrate on Vitamin A.

00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:58.000
[sil.]