World Food Prize awarded to scientists who developed biofortified sweet potato

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Four scientists have been awarded the 2016 World Food Prize for enriching sweet potatoes, which resulted in health benefits for millions of people.

They won the prize for “the single most example of biofortification”, resulting in Vitamin A-boosted crops.

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Three of the 2016 laureates – Drs Maria Andrade, Robert Mwanga and Jan Low from the CGIAR International Potato Center – have been recognised for their work developing the vitamin-enriched orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP).

The fourth winner, Dr Howard Bouis who founded HarvestPlus at the International Food Policy Research Institute, has been honoured for his work over 25 years to ensure biofortification was developed into an international plant breeding strategy across more than 40 countries.

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Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is considered to be one of the most harmful forms of malnutrition in the developing world. It can cause blindness, limits growth, weakens immunity and increases mortality.

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The World Health Organization describes biofortification as the process “by which the nutritional quality of food crops is improved through agronomic practices, conventional plant breeding, or modern biotechnology”.

It observes: “Biofortification may therefore present a way to reach populations where supplementation and conventional fortification activities may be difficult to implement.”

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: Sweet potato Vitamin A research wins World Food Prize

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