After an arduous journey spanning two decades and requiring a substantial investment of millions of dollars, researchers at Uganda's National Agricultural Research Laboratories have successfully engineered a genetically modified banana. This extraordinary banana variety contains an impressive dose of provitamin A, a compound that undergoes transformation into vitamin A within the human body, resulting in its flesh displaying a distinctive orange hue.
Dubbed the "super banana," this invention stands as a testament to the noblest of causes: to combat the tragic loss of thousands of young lives in Uganda due to vitamin A deficiency.
From National Geographic:
The breakthrough is the result of a partnership of the lab in Kawanda, where Tushemereirwe serves as director, James Dale, an Australian agricultural scientist and banana expert, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which invested $11 million in one of the longest running research projects the foundation has ever undertaken. Wilberforce was 44 in 2005, when work began on Banana21, as the project is known, and is 65 today.
One hurdle remains: gaining government approval in the face of vocal opposition to genetically modified crops. Legislation to regulate and promote development of GMOs has been in the works in the Ugandan Parliament since the early 2000s but has not yet been signed into law.
Treatment for vitamin A deficiency has existed for a century, and the ailment has all but disappeared from wealthy nations. Yet it remains a serious global public health problem. The World Health Organization estimates that 190 million preschool children suffer from vitamin A deficiency today, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. It is the leading cause of preventable blindness in children. It also inhibits kids’ growth and so weakens their resistance to illness that many die from treatable diseases such as diarrhea and measles. In Africa alone, the “silent hunger” of rampant malnutrition is to blame for 6 percent of early childhood deaths, and in Uganda, one of the world’s poorest countries, it remains high on the list of health risks.
I'm not much of a proponent for GMO foods either, but you can't argue with how this technology is working wonders in this part of the world.
Hopefully, the government realizes that and makes these "super bananas" available to a larger portion of the population.
