Biofortified High Zinc Wheat: The Traditional Staple Dietary Food to Address Malnutrition in Pakistan

Breeding strategies for biofortified staple plant foods to reduce micronutrient malnutrition globally.

One sustainable agricultural approach to reducing micronutrient malnutrition among people at highest risk (i.e., resource-poor women, infants and children) globally is to enrich major staple food crops (e.g., rice, wheat, maize, beans and cassava) with micronutrients through plant-breeding strategies. These target groups are dependent on these staples for their sustenance. Available research ha...

Agronomic Approaches to Increasing Zinc Concentration in Staple Food Crops

Bioavailability of iron, zinc, and provitamin A carotenoids in biofortified staple crops.

International research efforts, including those funded by HarvestPlus, a Challenge Program of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), are focusing on conventional plant breeding to biofortify staple crops such as maize, rice, cassava, beans, wheat, sweet potatoes, and pearl millet to increase the concentrations of micronutrients that are commonly deficient in spec...

Biofortified crops to alleviate micronutrient malnutrition.

Micronutrient malnutrition affects more than half of the world population, particularly in developing countries. Concerted international and national fortification and supplementation efforts to curb the scourge of micronutrient malnutrition are showing a positive impact, alas without reaching the goals set by international organizations. Biofortification, the delivery of micronutrients via mic...

Iron-biofortified staple food crops for improving iron status: a review of the current evidence

Iron deficiency is the most common micronutrient deficiency globally and represents a major threat to public health. Biofortification, the process of enhancing micronutrient content and bioavailability in staple crops, represents an exciting sustainable food-based strategy to combat and prevent iron deficiency, particularly in resource-limited settings. In this review, we examine the evidence t...