Two men, Ingo Petroykus and Peter Beyer decided they were going to do something about this.  And they thought, rice is a major crop for many of these people.  What if we could put the genes that will produce beta-carotene, into rice?  So the people would get enough Vitamin A because beta-carotene is the precursor of  Vitamin A, that they could get enough in the diet then the children would no longer go blind.  So they did this.