When I started my career as an economist 30 years ago, I had no idea that I would eventually work with a global network of partners to develop a new intervention to tackle micronutrient deficiency. That problem was not fully understood then. The Green Revolution’s increased crop yields made it easier for the poor to fill their plates with food staples to keep from going hungry. More calories were assumed to mean better nutrition. Today, we know better. The threat posed by “hidden hunger” from inadequate intake of vitamin A, iodine, iron, zinc, and other minerals and vitamins continues to undermine the health of millions of people worldwide.
Fortunately, these farmers now have an additional way to improve their nutrition: growing food staples that now include significantly more of much-needed vitamins and minerals. This breakthrough is known as biofortification — using conventional crop breeding techniques to make crops, and food, healthier. Today, 10 million people in rural households are growing and eating biofortified foods, and with partners, we are scaling up to reach millions more. Because they are high yielding, biofortified crops are attractive to farmers to grow. They are also affordable, as biofortified food generally sell for the same price in the market as nonbiofortified varieties.
How does this process work? First, plant breeders screen thousands of different types of crop seed stored in global seed banks to discover varieties with naturally higher amounts of micronutrients. They create new high-yielding biofortified crop varieties that are also resistant to disease, pests, heat and drought. To date, biofortified crops, including vitamin A orange sweet potato, iron bean, vitamin A cassava, vitamin A maize, iron pearl millet, zinc rice and zinc wheat are being grown in 27 countries.
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