Dr. Howarth Bouis: 2016 World Food Prize Laureate

By Howarth Bouis
WASHINGTON DC, Dec 21 2016 (IPS)

This year’s World Food Prize pays tribute to biofortification, an intervention that strengthens efforts to address one of the world’s most insidious and pervasive public health challenges—hidden hunger. That is good news for the majority of the two billion people globally who suffer from hidden hunger, and likewise for those fighting to end the epidemic.

Hidden hunger is the lack of essential vitamins and minerals (micronutrients) necessary for a healthy and productive life. According to the World Health Organization, zinc, iron and vitamin A are among the micronutrients most lacking in diets globally. The deficiency in these particular micronutrients can lead to blindness, stunting, mental retardation, learning disabilities, low work capacity, and even premature death.

Women and young children are hardest hit. More than half of women and three-quarters of children aged under five in India, for example, are estimated to be iron deficient. The burden of hidden hunger extends to economies. India alone loses over $12 billion in GDP annually to vitamin and mineral deficiencies.[1]

The majority of populations most affected by hidden hunger reside in the developing world where regular access to important and effective interventions such as supplementation and fortification is constrained by cost and infrastructure challenges.

More than half of women and three-quarters of children aged under five in India, for example, are estimated to be iron deficient. The burden of hidden hunger extends to economies. India alone loses over $12 billion in GDP annually to vitamin and mineral deficiencies
Those populations are also, unfortunately, unable to diversify their daily diet and, therefore, their micronutrient intake since they rely largely on macronutrient- and/or energy-rich but micronutrient-poor staple food crops—rice, maize, cassava, beans, etc.—for sustenance. In India, for instance, only about one in 10 children regularly consume iron-rich food, while the proportion of children under two years of age who regularly consume vitamin A-rich foods is less than half.[2]

It is difficult to imagine a reversal in the global incidence and impact of hidden hunger without innovative new approaches to complement conventional nutrition interventions. Biofortification is not the silver bullet, but it can significantly expand the reach of nutrition to populations in need. Its underlying premise is that since millions of people eat staple food crops daily, improving the nutritional quality of these crops will lead to better nutritional and health outcomes.

By breeding and disseminating staple food crops rich in vitamins and minerals, biofortification can substantially increase the intake of micronutrients among households growing and consuming these improved crops.

Biofortification has distinct advantages.  It is sustainable; farmers and consumers who adopt biofortified crops can grow and eat these crops over and over, benefitting from the extra vitamins and minerals for free. It is a food based approach that lets the plants do some of the work. Biofortification is also cost effective. After the initial outlay of funds, the recurrent costs are minimal, and each dollar invested reaps $17 dollars’ worth of benefits.[3]

More importantly, biofortification is effective. Recently published studies show that crops biofortified with iron, such as pearl millet in India[4] and beans in Rwanda, [5] can reverse iron deficiency. Sweet potato biofortified with vitamin A reduced the incidence and duration of diarrhea among children in Mozambique.[6] The evidence on the nutritional and health impact of biofortified crops continues to grow as the crops gain momentum around the world.

To date, biofortified crops have been released in 30 countries, including India, and are under testing in an additional 25. HarvestPlus and its partners are developing and delivering these crops as public goods. At least four million households in Asia, Africa, and Latin America have already been reached with these nutritious crops. Scaling up delivery to reach a billion people with biofortified foods by 2030 is a key objective of HarvestPlus.

By shining the spotlight on biofortification, the World Food Prize has brought greater visibility and momentum to the strategy, and it can be the springboard for its scale up and impact globally. India, a country that is no stranger to agricultural innovations, will also play a major role in scaling up biofortification.

The country has already adopted several biofortified crops such as iron pearl millet, zinc rice, and zinc wheat, with more on the way. In 2018 New Delhi will host the Third Global Conference on Biofortification, which will explore strategies and partnerships to broaden delivery and adoption of the nutritious foods. This is a pivotal moment for biofortification and the millions of households around the world who stand to benefit from its success.

[1] World Bank

[2] UNICEF

[3] The Copenhagen Consensus

[4] The Journal of Nutrition

[5] The Journal of Nutrition

[6] World Development

Excerpt:

Vicente Castrellón proudly shows his biofortified rice crop. The 69-year-old farmer provides technical advice to other farmers participating in the Agro Nutre programme in the central Panamanian district of Olá. Credit: Fabíola Ortiz/IPS

By Fabíola Ortiz
PANAMA CITY, Sep 16 2014 (IPS)

Panama is the first Latin American country to have adopted a national strategy to combat what is known as hidden hunger, with a plan aimed at eliminating micronutrient deficiencies among the most vulnerable segments of the population by means of biofortification of food crops.

The project began to get underway in 2006 and took full shape in August 2013, when the government launched the Agro Nutre Panamá programme, which coordinates the improvement of food quality among the poor, who are concentrated in rural and indigenous areas, by adding iron, vitamin A and zinc to seeds.

“We see biofortification as an inexpensive way to address the problem by means of staple foods that families consume on a daily basis,” Ismael Camargo, the coordinator of Agro Nutre, told IPS. Panama has pockets of poverty with high levels of micronutrient deficiencies, he explained.

In 2006 research began here into biofortification of maize; two years later beans were added to the programme; and in 2009 the research incorporated rice and sweet potatoes, as part of a plan that is backed by the National Secretariat of Science, Technology and Innovation.“We are producing three harvests a year, I provide technical support for other farmers. For now it’s for family consumption, but some grow more than they need and earn a little money selling the surplus." -- Vicente Castrellón

Panama’s Agricultural Research Institute and academic institutions are involved in Agro Nutre, which has the support of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP), and Brazil’sn governmental agricultural research agency, Embrapa.

Some 4,000 of the country’s 48,000 subsistence level or family farmers are taking part in the current phase, planting biofortified seeds.

Adding micronutrients to staple foods in the Panamanian diet became a state policy in 2009. So far, five varieties of maize, four of rice and two of beans, all of them conventionally improved and with a high protein content, have been produced experimentally and approved for release.

“The project began in rural areas, because that is where the extreme poverty is, and where farmers produce for subsistence,” food engineer Omaris Vergara of the University of Panama told IPS.

She added that in this phase, “the commercialisation of these foods is not being considered – the aim is to improve the nutritional quality of the diets of family farmers.”

According to Vergara, the biggest hurdle for the expansion and growth of Agro Nutre is the lack of research infrastructure.

“The project is focused on vulnerable populations. Academic institutions will carry out impact studies, but they haven’t yet begun to do so because the studies are very costly,” said the engineer, who sees the lack of research facilities as the weak point of the project.

According to figures from Agro Nutre, of the 3.5 million people in this Central American country, one million live in rural areas. And of the rural population, half live in poverty and 22 percent in extreme poverty.

But the worst poverty in Panama is found among the 300,000 indigenous people who live in five counties, 90 percent of whom are poor.

Beans and rice in Olá

Isidra González, a 54-year-old small farmer, had never heard of improving the nutritional quality of food with micronutrients until she and her oldest son began five years ago to plant biofortified seeds on their small plot of land in the community of Hijos de Dios in the district of Olá, which is in the central province of Coclé.

Now the 70 families in that village next to the only road in the area produce biofortified crops: beans on small plots climbing tropical lush green hills and rice on nearby floodable land.

“I think these seeds are better and produce more. They grow with just half the amount of water,” González, who has been involved in the project since the experimental phase, told IPS. “People like these crops because they have more flavour and are really good – my kids eat our rice and beans with enthusiasm, you can tell,” she added, laughing.

Vicente Castrellón, a 69-year-old local farmer, plants improved seeds and became a community trainer to help farmers in the district.

“We are producing three harvests a year, I provide technical support for other farmers. For now it’s for family consumption, but some grow more than they need and earn a little money selling the surplus,” he told IPS.

“Life here is very expensive for farmers like us,” Castrellón said in Hijos de Díos, which is 250 km from Panama City, over three hours away by car.

He added that it was not easy for the families in Olá to switch over to biofortified seeds. “It took nearly a year to get them to join Agro Nutre,” he said. “But now people are excited because for every 10 pounds that are planted, they grow 100 to 200 pounds of grains,” he added, proudly pointing to the rice plants on his plot of land.

The inclusion of the fourth crop, sweet potatoes (Imopeas batata), was a strategic move, researcher Arnulfo Gutiérrez explained.

The sweet potato, which had nearly disappeared from the Panamanian diet, is the world’s fifth-largest crop in term of production and FAO is promoting its expansion worldwide. The incorporation of sweet potatoes in Panama has the aim of boosting consumption and in 2015 two or three improved varieties are to be released.

Luis Alberto Pinto, a FAO consultant, forms part of the Agro Nutre administrative committee and is the national technical coordinator in the first two indigenous counties where improved seeds are being used, Gnäbe Bugle and Guna Yala.

“We are working in four pilot communities,” he told IPS. “In Gnäbe Bugle we are working with 129 farmers in Cerro Mosquito and Chichica, and in Guna Yala we are working with 50 farmers on islands along the Caribbean coast.

“We work in accordance with their customs and cultures, incorporating these products in a manner that can be sustained in time,” Pinto said. “Our hope is to expand the project to all of the indigenous counties.”

Besides science and production, the project requires constant lobbying of legislators and government ministries, to keep alive the political commitment to biofortification as a state policy.

Eyra Mojica, WFP representative in Panama, told IPS it now seems normal to her to walk down the corridors of parliament and visit the offices of high-level ministry officials.

“We have worked in advocacy with legislators, directors, ministers and new authorities,” she said. “The issue of food security is so complex. The WFP has become the main support for supplying information on nutrition to the authorities. There is a great deal of ignorance.”

By 2015, the WFP hopes to introduce cassava and summer squash as new biofortified crops.

“We want to have a basket of seven biofortified foods,” Mojica said. “The idea is to move forward by incorporating small groups, of women farmers for example. We are also looking into working with the school lunch programme, starting next year.”

Biofortification of staple foods with micronutrients, to reduce hidden hunger, was developed by HarvestPlus, a programme coordinated by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

Joane Nkuliye, a rural entrepreneur from Rwanda’s Eastern Province, grows biofortified beans on a commercial scale. Credit: Fabíola Ortiz/IPS

By Fabíola Ortiz
KIGALI, Apr 6 2014 (IPS)

Joane Nkuliye considers herself an activist. She is part of a select group of farmers producing biofortified crops on a commercial scale in Rwanda. 

Nkuliye owns 25 hectares in Nyagatare district, Eastern Province, two hours away from the capital, Kigali. She was awarded land by the government and moved there in 2000, with plans of rearing cattle. But she soon realised that growing food would be more profitable and have a greater impact on the local community as many of the kids in the area suffered from Kwashiorkor, a type of malnutrition caused by lack of protein.

“I have a passion for farming. We are being subsidised because very few people are doing commercial farming,” the entrepreneur, who is married with five children and has been farming for over 10 years, told IPS.

Four years ago, she was contacted by the NGO HarvestPlus, which is part of a CGIAR Consortium research programme on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health. The NGO is considered a leader in the global effort to improve nutrition and public health by developing crops and distributing seeds of staple foods that are rich in vitamins and minerals.

HarvestPlus provided Nkuliye with seeds, packaging, outlets for distribution and know-how. Now she grows biofortified beans on 11 of her 50 hectares of land.

“After harvesting beans I grow maize as an intercrop. I also grow sweet bananas, pineapples and papaya. I harvest 15 tonnes of food; I talk in terms of tonnes and not kilos,” she smiled.

Nkuliye was invited by HarvestPlus to speak at the Second Global Conference on Biofortification held in Kigali from Mar. 31 to Apr. 2, which was a gathering of scientists, policymakers and stakeholders.

Rwanda has ventured into a new agricultural era as it boosts its food production and enhances the nutrition level of the crops grown here.

In this Central African nation where 44 percent of the country’s 12 million people suffer from malnutrition and micronutrient deficiency, biofortified foods, like beans, are seen as a solution to reducing “hidden hunger” — a chronic lack of vitamins and minerals.

One in every three Rwandans is anaemic, and this percentage is higher in women and children. An estimated 38 percent of children under five and 17 percent of women suffer from iron deficiency here. This, according to Lister Tiwirai Katsvairo, the HarvestPlus country manager for the biofortification project, is high compared to other countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

Biofortified beans have high nutritional levels and provide up to 45 percent of daily iron needs, which is 14 percent more than commonly-grown bean varieties.

They also have an extra advantage as they have proved to produce high yields, are resistant to viruses, and are heat and drought tolerant.

Now, one third of Rwanda’s 1.9 million households grow and consume nutritious crops thanks to an initiative promoted by HarvestPlus in collaboration with the Rwandan government. The HarvestPlus strategy is “feeding the brain to make a difference,” Katsvairo said.

The national government, which has been working in partnership with HarvestPlus since 2010, sees nutrition as a serious concern. According to Rwanda’s Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources Agnes Kalibata, five government ministers are working cooperatively to address nutrition issues here.

She said that biofortified crops ensured that poor people, smallholder farmers and their families received nutrients in their diets. Around 80 percent of Rwanda’s rural population rely on agriculture for their livelihoods.

“Beans in Rwanda are our staple food, they are traditional. You cannot eat a meal without them. Beans that are biofortified have the main protein that will reach everybody, they are the main source of food,” she said.

Katsvairo explained that Rwanda has 10 different varieties of biofortified beans and that Rwandan diets comprise 200 grams of beans per person a day.

“Our farmers and population cannot afford meat on a daily basis. In a situation like this we need to find a crop that can provide nutrients and is acceptable to the community. We don’t want to change diets,” Katsvairo told IPS.

The ideologist and geneticist who led the Green Revolution in India is an advocate of what he calls “biohappiness”. Mankombu Sambasivan Swaminathan became famous for the Green Revolution that increased food production and turned India into a sustainable food producer.

“I am an enthusiast of biofortification. It is the best way to add nutrients like iron, zinc and vitamin A. In the case of biofortification it is a win-win situation,” he told IPS.

According to Swaminathan, who has been described by the United Nations Environment Programme as “the Father of Economic Ecology”, the concept of food security has grown and evolved into nutritious security.

“We found it is not enough to give calories, it is important to have proteins and micronutrients.”

Swaminathan says it is also a way of attacking silent hunger — hunger caused by extreme poverty.

“It fortifies in a biological matter and not in chemical matter, that is why I call it biohappiness,” said the first winner of the World Food Prize in 1987. He  has also been acclaimed by TIME magazine as one of the 20 most influential Asians of the 20th century.

According to Katsvairo, Rwanda has become an example to other sub-Saharan countries as the issue of nutrition is now part of public strategic policy here.

“Rwanda is still at the implementation stage but it is way ahead of other African countries,” confirmed Katsvairo.

Meanwhile, Nkuliye aims to expand her farm over the next few years and increase her crop of biofortified beans.

“I wanted to improve people’s lives. My husband is proud of me but I feel I haven’t done enough yet,” she said. Currently, she employes 20 women and 10 men on a permanent basis and hires temporary workers during planting and harvesting.

She first started her business with a three-year bank loan of five million Rwandan Francs (7,700 dollars). Now, she has applied for 20 million Rwandan Francs (30,800 dollars).

“I want to buy more land, at least 100 hectares. What I am producing is not enough for the market,” Nkuliye explained. While she harvests tonnes of produce to sell to the local market, she says it is not enough as demand is growing.

But she is proud that she has been able to feed her community.

“I have fed people with nutritious beans, I changed their lives and I have also changed mine. We have a culture of sharing meals and give our workers eight kilos of biofortified food to take to their families,” she said.

Fabíola Ortiz was invited by HarvestPlus and Embrapa-Brazil to travel to Rwanda.

Biofortified food crops growing in a municipal garden in Itaguaí. Credit: Courtesy of EMBRAPA

By Fabíola Ortiz
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 17 2013 (IPS)

In less than 10 years, consumers throughout Brazil will have access to eight biofortified “superfoods” being developed by the country’s scientists. A pilot initiative is currently underway in 15 municipalities.

Biofortification uses conventional plant breeding methods to enhance the concentration of micronutrients in food crops through a combination of laboratory and agricultural techniques.

The goal is to combat micronutrient deficiencies, which can cause severe health problems like anaemia, blindness, impaired immune response and development delays. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, micronutrient malnutrition affects two billion people around the world.

These efforts in Brazil began a decade ago, when the government agricultural research agency, EMBRAPA, initiated the BioFORT project as part of an international alliance for the development of crop varieties with higher concentrations of essential micronutrients.

EMBRAPA chose eight foods that are staples of the Brazilian diet: rice, beans, cowpeas (black-eyed peas), cassava, sweet potatoes, corn, squash and wheat.

“We are working on increasing the iron, zinc and provitamin A content. These are the nutrients most lacking not only in Brazil, but in the rest of Latin America and the world as well, the cause of what we call hidden hunger,” food engineer and BioFORT coordinator Marília Nutti told Tierramérica*.

Iron is key. Half of Brazil’s children suffer from some degree of iron deficiency, said Nutti.

The scientists are working on the breeding of plants of the same species, choosing seeds that exhibit the best traits in terms of micronutrient content.

“This is not transgenics. We want a varied diet. Biofortification attacks the root of the problem and is aimed at the poorest sectors of the population. It is scientifically viable and economically viable as well,” she stressed.

The project is supported by HarvestPlus and AgroSalud, research programmes that are operating in Latin America, Africa and Asia with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank and various international development agencies.

How much more nutritious are these new foods? The iron content of the beans, for example, has been raised from 50 to 90 milligrams of iron per kilogram. The cassava, which normally contains almost no beta-carotene, now contains nine micrograms of this Vitamin A source per gram.

The beta-carotene content of sweet potatoes has been boosted from 10 micrograms per gram to a whopping 115 micrograms. And the zinc content of rice has been enhanced from 12 to 18 milligrams per kilo.

In Itaguaí, an industrial municipality 70 kilometres south of Rio de Janeiro, some 8,000 preschool children are already benefiting from these extra nutritious “superfoods”.

With a population of around 110,000, Itaguaí has an annual gross domestic product of 14,000 dollars, with most salaried workers earning two minimum wages, about 600 dollars a month. These conditions made it an ideal location for EMBRAPA to kick off the project, distributing the food grown to the municipality’s public schools, where it is used to prepare school lunches.

For now, the municipality is growing sweet potatoes, squash, beans and cassava on a one-hectare plot that is also used to train the family farmers who supply the schools.

“Itaguaí is a model municipality. This is the third year in a row that we have won the award for the best school lunch management. We have very ambitious plans to quickly reach the entire municipal education system in partnership with all of the family farmers,” said Ivana Neves Couto, the municipal secretary of environment, agriculture and fisheries.

The system encompasses 62 schools and 17,000 students. In 2010, the local authorities incorporated the nutrient-enriched foods in school lunches at 13 preschool centres, with a total enrolment of around 8,000 children.

The goal now is to include all of the municipality’s family farmers in the project, and within two years, to offer biofortified foods in all of its schools, as well as stores and public markets in the city.

One factor that works in favour of the new foods is the natural curiosity of children. “When we tell them that these foods have more vitamins, and they see the deeper colours (of the biofortified crops), they are eager to try them out,” Couto told Tierramérica.

Brazil is the only country working with eight biofortified crops. Bangladesh, Colombia, India, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Peru, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda are all conducting research on one crop each.

The challenge, said Nutti, is for biofortification to be adopted as a matter of national policy for the promotion of food security, following the example of Panama, which has already incorporated it on the government agenda.

The Brazilian initiative is currently in the pilot stage of cultivation, with crops now being grown in 11 states. A total of 15 municipalities are currently using the foods for school snacks and lunches.

Although the project was initiated in Itaguaí, the focus for the future is on states in the Brazilian Northeast, such as Maranhão, Piauí and Sergipe, which are the country’s poorest.

In total, there are now some 67 farming units and 1,860 family farmers directly involved in the production of biofortified crops.

This is a rather small scale for a country with 5,570 municipalities and a population of around 200 million.

A diet lacking in iron and zinc can cause anaemia, reduced work capacity, immune system impairments, development delays, and even death. Anaemia is the leading nutrition-related problem in Brazil.

Some 10 million dollars has been invested in the EMBRAPA project, which currently involves 15 universities, as well as a number of research centres and municipal governments.

In 2014, the agency plans to carry out an assessment of the project’s nutritional impact on the population, by measuring the results achieved with its “superfoods” in comparison with conventional food crops.

* This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.