The fight over genetically modified food has largely been waged in the West. When corporate giants like Monsanto introduced new types of corn and soybeans to resist pests, and to increase profits, consumers protested... particularly in Europe. In Asia, concerns over genetically-modified food are starting to appear. But this time the target isn't a multi-national corporation, but a non-profit institution that wants to help the poor. The World's Technology Correspondent, Jason Margolis travelled to the Philippines and filed this report.

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Margolis: The International Rice Research Institute is housed in a cluster of modest two and three story buildings, about a two-hour drive from Manila. It looks like a small college, except the buildings are surrounded by rice paddies. The tall stalks of rice sway in a mild breeze.

International Rice Research Institute

Margolis: Since 1960, thousands of scientists from around the world have worked here. They've developed new varieties of rice and new ways of growing it. And they've made many breakthroughs. Research here spurred Asia's Green Revolution that helped feed a swelling, and increasingly hungry population.

Today, this institute wants to make food not only more available, but more nutritious. Inside a highly secure, locked greenhouse, scientists are growing rows and rows of a new variety of rice that they believe could make millions of people healthier. Parminder Virk is a senior scientist at the Institute. He holds several grains of the new rice. It's appropriately called, Golden Rice.

Virk: "I have here the polished rice as you would buy in the supermarket. One is the golden rice and one is the normal rice. Normal rice, as you see is white in color, while the Golden Rice, it appears yellow, or deep yellow in color, depending on the content of Beta-Carotine it has."

Dr. Parminder Virk, a senior scientist at the International Rice Research Institute

Margolis: Scientists engineered this rice to contain Beta-Carotine; that's a nutrient that the body turns into vitamin A. Normal rice provides no Vitamin A. So, scientists hope this new golden rice can help an estimated 125 million children worldwide who suffer from Vitamin A deficiency. The ailment can cause blindness; immune system problems... even death.

Golden Rice represents a powerful new approach to nutrition. In the developed world, if we need more nutrients, it's simple: We can take a vitamin to "fortifiy" our diet.

Parminder Virk says for the developing world, a better option is creating crops that are inherently more nutritious. Scientists call these crops "bio-fortified."

Virk: "Because rice is consumed quite a lot, for example, in Bangladesh, a normal adult eats about 400 to 500 grams of rough rice every day. So if you look at those sort of numbers, and even if you add a little bit of Vitamin A in the rice, that's going to go a long way in terms of solving the problem. The other thing is the biofortified strategy is a long-term sustainable strategy. Once you put it into the crop, it's there forever."

Margolis: Scientists have been working on golden rice for seven years. They expect it to be commercially available by 2010. Many farmers and politicians in Asia are eager for that day to come.

regular rice (left) and golden rice

Margolis: But there's a brewing controversy around it, as well. Golden rice was created using modern genetic engineering techniques. Scientists took genes from corn and daffodils and spliced them into the rice DNA. And that means when golden rice goes on the market, it could be met by the same sort of protests and boycotts that greeted other genetically modified crops.

Already, there've been small protests in the Philippines and Bangladesh. Opponents of Golden Rice promise more in the future.

Devinder Sharma is an author and food policy analyst in New Dehli who opposes genetically modified crops.

Sharma: "Can't we wait for another 10, 20 years until we are very sure that these crops will not create problems?"

Margolis: He says scientists still don't fully understand what effect bioengineered crops can have on the environment. Furthermore, he argues that genetically-engineered rice won't help people in his country. He says for them, malnutrition is an economic problem.

Sharma: "In India, people are sitting in front of these huge stocks of rice, which the government has bought and is surplus rice. They can't afford that rice. If they can't afford the normal rice, please tell me how will they afford the genetically-modified rice, which is Vitamin A?"

Stalks of golden rice

Margolis: Another critic of golden rice is Sister Aida Velazquez. She's a proponent of sustainable agriculture in the Philippines and is a chemist who used to work at the International Rice Research Institute. Velazquez questions why genetically-altered rice is necessary in the first place?

Velazquez: "There are many sources of vegetables that have Vitamin A. Usually these vegetables abound in the area. For example we have squash here, which is rich in Vitamin A and there are number of other vegetables, which are the poor man's diet. Why engineer it in rice?"

Margolis: Scientists at the rice institute agree with this point: They say there's no substitute for a well-balanced diet. But the fact is that many poor people can't afford those vegetables. Instead, they're eating rice three times a day.

And as for safety concerns, scientists stress that they take extreme precautions in testing genetically-modified rice. They also point out that rice is self-pollinating, so with a proper distance between paddies, of even a football field, the odds of golden rice contaminating another variety is extremely low.

Phillipe Herve heads the biotechnology lab at the rice institute. He says no nation will be forced to accept golden rice if its people don't consider the crop safe or desirable.

Herve: "Each country will decide and make the choice. I think it would be quite insane to have a technology, to have a possible product and just keep it, hide it. I think this is our responsibility to work on those technologies, make these technologies available, and let each country decide."

Margolis: Those countries may have many decisions to make in the years ahead. The International Rice Research Institute hopes in the next decade to complete work on another genetically modified variety of rice – this one rich in iron. Even further out, the scientists are looking to biofortify rice with another essential nutrient: zinc.

For the World, I'm Jason Margolis, Los Banos, the Philippines.