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, maize, sweet potato, beans, cassava and pearl millet. Around 15 million people are growing and consuming these nutrient-rich varieties; over 80% of them are in Africa. The African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development (AJFAND) recently published a special issue on biofortification to capture some of these experiences. The issue compiles existing evidence on biofortification, identifies knowledge gaps and discusses how to leverage biofortification to improve nutrition and health, especially in Africa. It includes articles by practitioners that assess delivery experience of biofortified crops across several countries and through various delivery channels.

The issue comprises a series of articles that present:

• An overview of the landscape and approach for biofortification in Africa;
• The effect of provitamin A biofortified staple crops on vitamin A status, the efficacy of iron-biofortified crops, and micronutrient (provitamin A and iron/zinc) retention in biofortified crops;
• Progress made by HarvestPlus in plant breeding and instrumentation, including crop development, biovarieties that have been released and high-throughput measurement methodologies for developing nutrient-dense crops;
• The experiences of crop development and delivery in Africa, including sweet potato in Sub-Saharan Africa, orange maize in Zambia, vitamin A-rich cassava in Nigeria and iron-rich beans in Rwanda;  
• Insights into the marketing of biofortified crops and integrating the crops in community development programmes;
• Measurement and maximisation of the impact of biofortification programmes, identifying optimal investments in biofortification and evidence of the effectiveness of the orange sweet potato;
• A section on policy and stakeholder engagement describing advocacy experiences in biofortification; and
• A summary of the way forward for biofortification.

Three of the articles are summarised below. All articles can be accessed in full at: https://www.ajfand.net/Volume17/No2/index.html

Endnotes

¹Special issue devoted to biofortification. The African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development (AJFAND), Vol. 17, no. 2 (2017).

²Formerly the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research.