Eighty percent of Zambians live on less than two U.S. dollars a day, a situation that has contributed to high levels of hunger and malnutrition for a majority whose staple diet consists largely of white maize.

Vitamin deficiencies leave children and people living with HIV particularly vulnerable to disease. Credit: Brian Moonga/IPS

Researchers have developed a new, vitamin-rich maize variety that they hope will provide an affordable improvement to the diets in Zambia and across Africa.

Malnutrition compromises the health of close to 10 million Zambians. A lack of essential nutrients weakens the immune system, leaving children and people living with HIV in particular more vulnerable to disease.

Catherine Moono is a Lusaka housewife and mother of four. Like most Zambians, her family’s diet consists largely of white maize, ground into maize meal which is cooked into a thick porridge locally known as nshima.

U.S.-based HarvestPlus is a nongovernmental organisation developing improved crop varieties suitable for the climate and economies of developing countries. The organisation has announced the development of a new maize variety rich in vitamin A.

According to Dr Torbert Rochford, a researcher at Purdue University, this conventionally-bred maize variety could be an ideal solution to one of the nutritional challenges developing countries like Zambia face.

“The material that was used comes from four inbred lines from Thailand that were orange in colour then I crossed these inbreeds with each other and selected for dark orange visually. It was a very simple standard conventional breeding practice, all natural, no GMO involved. Selection for dark orange also increased the amount of carotene.”

(Crossing inbred lines is a common technique of crossing nearly identical plant varieties to strengthen desired characteristics in the hybrid offspring.)

Samuel Tembo, the manager for Plan International Zambia’s Economic Empowerment Country Program, says the new maize variety could contribute significantly to improving the diet of children and adults alike.

“Plan sees this development as an opportunity to contribute to reduction in malnutrition among children as vitamin A will now be in the main staple food which is widely grown in the country. Plan International has been working with rural communities where Malnutrition is high by promoting crop diversification in order to ensure that food stuffs grown contribute to the dietary needs of children.”

In a country where poor sanitation regularly exposes children in particular to waterborne diseases like cholera, improved diets that strengthen resistance to disease are crucial. For the many people living with HIV – and there are 80,000 children alone currently on antiretroviral drugs – proper nutrition is vital to the success of anti-retroviral therapy.

Vitamin A-rich maize could offer an effective means of supporting better diets for Zambia’s most vulnerable.