GMO Bananas Must Pass Their First Test

NPR

Published July 11, 2014 at 1:50 PM EDT

Ugandan researcher Stephen Buah and Professor James Dale hold bananas bred to be rich in vitamin A at Queensland University of Technology (Erika Fish/Courtesy of Queensland University of Technology)

Volunteers in Iowa are getting a great deal — $900 for eating a banana. It’s part of a human feeding experiment to test genetically-engineered bananas.

Researchers hope that blood drawn from the volunteers will show higher levels of vitamin A, so the bananas can head to Uganda, where bananas are a staple and vitamin A deficiency is widespread.

NPR’s Dan Charles joins Here & Now’s Meghna Chakrabarti to talk about the experiment, and what this may mean for fortified produce.

Read Dan Charles’ report on “globe-trotting GMO bananas” on NPR

Guest

Dan Charles, NPR food and agriculture correspondent. He tweets @nprDanCharles.