Orange Is the New Maize

摘要

"I was the only one doing it," researcher Torbert Rocheford explains demurely when asked about the expertise that had the government knocking on his door in 2001. Rocheford, a plant geneticist at Purdue, drew the attention of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for his research on variations affecting provitamin A carotenoids - naturally occurring plant pigments that our bodies can convert to vitamin A - in maize. Working with USAID and later HarvestPlus and the National Science Foundation, Rocheford has used natural breeding techniques to pioneer high beta-carotenoid orange corn.