WOW. Nobody argued that rice wasn't good for you. A diet of all or mostly rice leads to nutrition deficiencies.

>in non-white rice

People eat white rice because it doesn't spoil as fast, especially in the tropics.

Education, treating poverty, and encouraging biodiversity and a varied diet among the population. Teaching things like backyard farming, hygiene, breastfeeding. Also vaccines since infection drains vitamin A deficiency and a large cause of mortality from infectious diseases is due to vitamin A deficiency.

Other problems like political instability and poverty are more difficult to find a solution to. I'll let other people study that one.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK11761/

> The overall prevalence of VAD is decreasing markedly because of increased awareness of VAD as a public health problem and increased measles immunization and vitamin A supplementation or fortification programs. However, the prevalence of VAD is increasing or is unknown in some regions because of political instability, high rates of infectious disease, and increasing poverty.

http://www.cehjournal.org/article/do-vitamin-a-deficiency-an...

>Children grow and develop well when they have access to affordable, diverse, nutrient-rich food, appropriate maternal and child care, adequate health services and a healthy environment including safe water, sanitation and good hygiene.

>Underlying these causes are factors such as household food insecurity (due to poverty or other reasons), inadequate care and feeding practices, unhealthy household environments and inadequate health services

> Improving the availability of affordable, nutritious foods requires a broad approach, encompassing all the farmers, businesses, institutions and processes (such as supply chains) which produce, process and make foods available to communities.

>In the short term, vitamin A supplementation is the most effective way to reduce vitamin A deficiency and child mortality (see page 70). Doing something about vitamin A deficiency on its own, however, will not deal with the larger problem of undernutrition and deficiency of other micronutrients essential for growth, health and educational development. This is why, in this issue of the Community Eye Health Journal, we suggest that vitamin A deficiency must be addressed – not just with supplementation – but also by working with mothers to address the immediate and underlying causes of chronic undernutrition. This will improve their children’s health and diet and therefore also their general nutrition. In particular, we should encourage improved hand washing practices and work with families to overcome customs associated with inadequate complementary or weaning foods.

That being said, I don't actually believe that giving golden rice to farmers is currently a bad idea as it is already there. I just think the whole initiative was tackling the problem the wrong way. I also worry about any unintended consequences.

It isn't a popular opinion around here because there is a view that science will fix all the world's problems. Too often the societal problems that cause those problems are ignored. Even suggesting that GMOs might not be the answer we are all looking for gets you lumped in with the loonies and a flurry of downvotes.