The creation of the golden rice was because people did not have access to carrots, mangoes, and vitamin A rich herbs. It was not a matter of efficiency; it was

The creation of the golden rice was because people did not have access to carrots, mangoes, and vitamin A rich herbs. It was not a matter of efficiency; it was about the lack of access to other nutrients. Rice is already commonly farm-able in regions which had vitamin A deficiencies in poorer demographics, so it was a great crop to be enriched. Just because some other foodstuffs can do what golden rice was intended to do doesn't mean that it was a failure. This article is highly opinionated, and not particularly well thought-out in terms of the reasoning behind golden rice.