Feed the World: Micronutrients and Super Seeds

Hunger crisis vs nutrition crisis

Through its Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and UNICEF – the UN, its partners and other NGOs are at the forefront of efforts to combat hunger in both developed and developing countries.

The term “hunger crisis” can be misleading, however, as it is not just the provision of food that is essential, but rather food that can provide the various nutrients needed for a balanced diet.

According to the FAO website, strategies including nutritional education and small-scale vegetable farming (among others) increase people’s ability to maintain good health: “Any programme that increases the production and consumption of micronutrient-rich foods is likely to have a beneficial effect on the micronutrient status of a population.”

Micronutrients

Micronutrients are essential for a balanced diet, particularly for children and pregnant women, enabling normal growth and development, while supplementation and biofortification are two effective ways of reducing nutrient deficiencies in various population groups.

According to the UN Administrative Committee on Coordination / Sub-Committee on Nutrition’s (ACC/SCN) Fourth Report on the World Nutrition Situation, released in January 2000 in collaboration with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), if children do not receive the correct nutrients in their formative years, it could even adversely affect their own offspring: “Causes and consequences of early childhood deficiencies have implications for later life and may be present as risk factors for future generations.”

On top of this, the report highlighted the fact that – especially in developing countries – mothers might not have access to all the nutrients vital to the health of their babies.

Micronutrient supplementation

Because of this, the report asserted that supplementation could be an effective strategy to complement a regular diet, stating: “Given the fact that at certain stages of the lifecycle – most notably during pregnancy – it may be difficult for dietary needs to be met through diet alone, multiple micronutrient supplementation holds clear potential to address multiple nutrient deficiencies in a cost effective manner.”

The ACC/SCN report states that many population groups suffer from a variety of nutrient deficiency overlaps – for example, the clustering of vitamin A and iron deficiencies – while these deficiencies also interact.

“Vitamin A supplementation at appropriate levels has been found to improve not only vitamin A status but also iron metabolism in pregnant women and pre-school and school-age children,” states the report, continuing, “A combined iron and vitamin A supplement has been found to be more than 40% more effective in reducing anaemia than an iron supplement alone.”

Biofortification

According to the FAO, food fortification (or biofortification), “is increasingly recognised as an effective medium to long-term approach to improving the micronutrient status of large populations”.

The presentation by Penelope Nestel, Howarth E. Bouis, J.V. Meenakshi and Wolfgang Pfeiffer at the 2005 symposium on “Food Fortification in Developing Countries” provides the following definition: “biofortification is the development of micronutrient-dense staple crops using the best traditional breeding practices and modern biotechnology.”

The advantages of the biofortification approach are multiple. Firstly, according to the experts at the symposium, it focuses on food staples, thereby capitalising on regular daily intake, particularly in poor communities where staple foods dominate diets.

For example, they highlight a study conducted on high-iron rice with Filipino women, which found the following:

“Under-milled, iron-enhanced rice, which provided an additional 1.41mg of iron/d, representing a 17% increase in dietary iron in the diets of these women, was efficacious in improving serum ferritin concentrations and body iron levels in non-anaemic (sic) subjects compared with the locally used rice.”

As well as rice, some of the main staple foods being focused on at present are common bean, cassava, maize, sweet potato and wheat.

As part of the HarvestPlus Biofortification Program – funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank, US Agency for International Development, UK Department for International Development and the Danish International Development Agency – orange-flesh sweet potato lines with high levels of ß-carotene (over 200 mg/g) have been identified, while beans with improved agronomic traits and grain type, and 50%-70% more iron, have been bred conventionally.

However, traditional breeding for biofortification is not always possible or even recommended, with the experts stating, “Transgenic approaches are in some cases necessary and, in some cases, potentially advantageous compared with conventional breeding,” and going on to point out the example of Golden Rice: “ß-carotene has not been identified in the endosperm of any rice variety, and an advanced transgenic line containing 37mg/g carotenoid, of which 31mg/g is ß-carotene, is now available.”

Another advantage to biofortification is the fact that once self-fortifying seeds are developed, there is little more investment needed, while the germplasm can be shared internationally. According to the symposium speakers, “This multiplier aspect of plant breeding across time and distance makes it cost effective.”

Once in place, according to these experts, a biofortified crop system is highly sustainable: “Nutritionally improved varieties will continue to be grown and consumed year after year, even if government attention and international funding for micronutrient issues fades.”

In addition to these benefits, they claim that biofortification may even increase productivity: “Mineral-packed seeds sell themselves to farmers because these trace minerals are essential in helping plants resist disease and other environmental stresses. Moreover, a higher proportion of seedlings survive, initial growth is more rapid, and ultimately yields are higher.”

The SUN Road Map – a global effort to scale up nutrition

In September last year leading micronutrient company the Ottawa-based Micronutrient Initiative (MI) endorsed the SUN (scale up nutrition) Road Map, which aims to identify investments – like biofortification and supplementation – that have been shown to work if implemented within the context of nutrition-focused development policies.

“Without investment and coordinated action in nutrition, the world will not meet the Millennium Development Goals,” asserts MI president Venkatesh Mannar.

Mannar goes on to say, “Through the SUN Road Map, country, regional and international stakeholders will work together to establish and then pursue an effort to scale up nutrition. This is a welcome and necessary effort to ensure we bring billions out of poverty in the coming years.”