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BIOFORTIFICATION: LEVERAGING AGRICULTURE TO REDUCE HIDDEN HUNGER 89


Seeds, roots, and tubers can usually be saved by farmers and shared with others in their communities. Once the high-nutrition trait is bred into the crops, it is fixed, and the biofortified crops can be grown to deliver better nutrition year after year—without recurring costs.


Biofortification: Limitations and Challenges Promising as it is, biofortification faces limitations and challenges. First, biofor- tification requires a paradigm shift. Agricultural science and nutrition are com- partmentalized disciplines that must be integrated for biofortification to succeed. Agricultural scientists need to add nutrition objectives to their breeding programs, in addition to standard goals such as productivity and disease resistance. Plant breeders must then work closely with nutritionists to develop breeding targets for nutrients. Nutritionists and health professionals also need to accommodate agriculture-based approaches in their toolbox along with clinical interventions. Second, biofortification will be widely adopted only when proponents show


that these new foods improve nutrition. Most biofortified crops are still in the development pipeline. However, one biofortified staple food crop that has been successfully released is the orange (or orange-fleshed) sweet potato (OSP; see Box 3). As other crops follow, nutritionists will be able to build a body of evidence that biofortification is a viable agriculture-based intervention to improve nutrition. Third, the amounts of nutrients that can be bred into these crops are gener- ally much lower than can be provided through fortification and supplementation.


BOX 3 Orange Sweet Potato: An Emerging Success Story Varieties of orange sweet potato (OSP) with very high levels of vitamin A have been conventionally bred to combat vitamin-A deficiency in regions of Africa where sweet potato is a staple food. Studies have shown OSP improves vitamin-A status in young African children. Beginning in 2007, pilot pro- grams successfully disseminated OSP to more than 24,000 households in Uganda and Mozambique. The project led to substantial substitution of OSP for nonbiofortified varieties in the cultivated areas devoted to OSP produc- tion. As a result, the intake of OSP, and thus vitamin A, increased for young children, older children, and women. Vitamin A intakes as much as doubled in some of these groups.


Sources: HarvestPlus 2010, Low et al. 2007, and Hotz et al. 2011.


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