An overview of biofortification in Africa
Research snapshot1
Biofortification is the process of breeding nutrients into staple food crops to help reduce mineral and vitamin deficiencies. It is recognised by the Scaling up Nutrition (SUN) Movement as an important link in the chain between agriculture and nutrition. It offers a cost-effective and sustainable investment as, unlike the ongoing financial outlays required for supplementation and commercial fortification programmes, a one-time investment in plant breeding can yield micronutrient-rich planting materials for farmers to grow for years to come.
There are three common approaches to biofortification: agronomic, conventional and transgenic. Agronomic biofortification provides temporary micronutrient increases through fertilizers and/or foliar sprays and is useful to increase micronutrients absorbed directly by the plant. Conventional plant breeding involves identifying and developing parent lines with naturally high vitamin or mineral levels and crossing them over several generations to produce plants with desired nutrient and agronomic traits. Transgenic plant breeding seeks to do the same in crops where the target nutrient does not naturally exist by inserting genes from another species. The special issue of AJFAND focuses on conventionally bred, biofortified varieties of staple food crops as currently little evidence exists on the use of agronomic biofortification and transgenic biofortified crops in Africa.
A three-stage process takes biofortification strategies from research to delivery (see Figure 1). Methodologies have been developed over the years to calculate the levels of extra minerals and/or vitamins required in diets to have a measurable public health impact. Resulting nutrient targets are used by economists and nutritionists to calculate the cost-effectiveness of biofortification strategies. This then guides donor investments in the development and testing of biofortified staple food crop varieties (calculation methodologies are described in detail in the AJFAND edition).
Since 2012, biofortification has moved significantly into the delivery phase in several African countries; several case studies are written up in this special issue. With strong proof-of-concept for biofortification, moving towards scale will require increased public and private sector investment in crop development and seed systems to sustain the pipeline of biofortified varieties.
Endnotes
1Bouis H, Saltzman A, Low J, Ball A and Covic N. (2017) An overview of the landscape and approach for biofortification in Africa. African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development, Vol. 17, No. 2, April 2017. https://www.ajfand.net/Volume17/No2/index.html
More like this
FEX: AJFAND special issue on biofortification
Summary of research1 Over the last decade HarvestPlus CGIAR2 national partners have developed over 150 varieties of 11 micronutrient-rich staples, including rice, wheat,...
FEX: Biofortification: Helping meet nutrition needs worldwide
News By Dr Erick Boy, Nutrition Head, HarvestPlus Dr Erick Boy is a public health practitioner and has a doctoral degree in nutrition from University of California, Davis. He...
FEX: Bioavailability of iron, zinc and provitamin A carotenoids in biofortified staple crops
Summary of study1 Location: Global What we know: Biofortification of staple foods is one potential way of increasing micronutrient intake in resource limited populations....
FEX: Development and delivery of orange sweet potato in Sub-Saharan Africa
Research snapshot1 In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), more than 40% of children under five years old suffer from vitamin A deficiency. One intervention to tackle this problem is the...
FEX: Optimal investments in biofortification
Research snapshot1 As momentum for biofortification builds and stakeholders become increasingly interested in investing in it, evidence-based information is needed to decide...
FEX: Linking agriculture with nutrition within SDG2: making a case for a dietary diversity indicator
By Anna Lartey Anna Lartey is Director of FAO's Nutrition Division within the Economic and Social Development Department at FAO in Rome. She was a Professor of Nutrition at...
FEX: Operational factors in the integration of nutrition into agriculture and livelihoods programmes in Zimbabwe
By Anne-Marie Mayer, Rose Ndolo and Jane Keylock View this article as a pdf Lisez cet article en français ici Anne-Marie Mayer works as a consultant for programmes at...
FEX: Moderating the impact of climate change
Summary of published research1 Adaptations to guard against the impact on food security of climate change are reviewed in a recently published article. The authors start with...
FEX: Wild Foods — Blessing or Burden?
Caroline Gullick recently completed an MSc project looking at different aspects of wild foods. The field research was conducted amongst the Dinka (Monjeng) Tribe of Northern...
FEX: Assessing seed systems in relief operations
Summary1 of published paper Bags of wheat seed are returned to Concern by seed beneficiaries, Caliomamo, Angola Existing guidelines on emergency seed provisioning contain...
FEX: Konzo Associated with War in Mozambique
Summary of published paper Konzo (also known as cassava poisoning) is a medical condition associated with eating insufficiently processed cassava. This condition affects the...
en-net: How much would an average family need to plant annually to achieve food security?
I wondered if anyone had any information on how much an average family would need to plant annually to achieve food security? Our team in Uganda are trying to investigate this...
FEX: Enset - The ‘False Banana’ as Food Security
George Jacob is communications officer with Self Help Development International. Previously he worked as a journalist, sub-editor and news editor with an Irish newspaper group,...
Resource: Biofortification: An Agricultural Investment for Nutrition
This policy brief lays out the technical evidence and arguments for supporting biofortification as one element of a nutrient-sensitive national agricultural research and...
FEX: The impact of climate change on nutrition: Learning from four countries
View this article as a pdf This is a summary of the following report: World Vision (2022) The impact of climate change on nutrition: Policy brief....
FEX: Support for primary production (Special Supplement 3)
7.1 Introduction This section focuses on supporting agricultural production, in particular farming and livestock production, as livelihood strategies. Production support can...
FEX: Responding to early warnings
Summary of published research1 Desert locust An article on the failure of early warning systems (EWS) to elicit response cites recent experiences in Niger and southern Africa...
FEX: Seed vouchers and fairs in Zimbabwe - CRS (Special Supplement 3)
In 2001/2, Zimbabwe experienced one of the worst droughts in ten years. Other factors which contributed to create a food crisis included economic decline, characterised by high...
FEX: Mainstreaming nutrition in a school-based feeding programme in northeast Nigeria
By Greg Sclama View this article as a pdf Lisez cet article en français ici Gregory Sclama is an Assistant Professor of International Development and Economics at the...
FEX: Seed security in southern Sudan
Summary of published paper1 sorghum ready for harvest Seeds-and-tools programmes have been widely implemented throughout southern Sudan as a means of increasing the...
Reference this page
An overview of biofortification in Africa. Field Exchange 55, July 2017. p23. www.ennonline.net/fex/55/biofortificationinafrica
(ENN_5669)