Potato Centre partners to promote, upscale bio-fortified staple crops

bio-fortified staple crops

In the face of food security and malnutrition challenges, the International Potato Centre restated its intention and continued effort to end malnutrition amongst kids, during its inception and planning workshop in Abuja, theme Building Nutritious Food Basket Project Nigeria towards  strengthening and enabling the environment for investments in bio-fortified crops.

The Building Nutritious Food Baskets (BNFB) is a new project led by the international Potato Centre (CIP) and implemented through a consortium of partners. It has an overall goal of reducing hidden hunger and purposes to demonstrate how scaling up of “multiple bio-fortified crops” can be achieved.

BNFB is implemented through a consortium of partners. CIP is the lead partner, working with  four CGIAR centers and programs, governments of Tanzania and Nigeria and other regional and national partners working on nutritious staple crops including  the International Potato Center (CIP) with expertise in orange fleshed sweet potato (OFSP).  BNFB explores a multi-crop food basket approach through advocating for increased investment in bio-fortified crops as a sustainable way to combat micronutrient malnutrition. The project mainly targets the rural populations, especially young children under the age of five and women of reproductive age. The multiple crops include vitamin A-rich orange-fleshed sweet potato, vitamin A- rich yellow cassava, vitamin A-rich yellow maize and high iron beans, which focuses on developing institutional capacities to design and implement gender-sensitive programs and projects to ensure wide access and utilization of bio-fortified crops. 

The Project Manager of BNFB project Hilda Munyua, stated that  it has at its core advocacy efforts aimed at catalyzing policy change, combined with efforts to mobilize resource commitments by governments, developmental partners, and the private sector, which  seeks to build national and community capabilities to produce and consume bio-fortified crops for improved nutrition and increased incomes, particularly for adolescent girls and women of child-bearing age and young children, in both rural and urban areas.

Hilda said that bio-fortification is one of the sustainable and cost-effective ways of addressing micronutrient malnutrition and that the efforts are gaining global recognition and impacting on millions of people by addressing food insecurity especially in Africa. She added that this year’s World Food Prize has been awarded to four laureates in recognition of their efforts in developing food crops that are rich in micronutrients essential minerals and vitamins.

 The Project Manager noted that their efforts have impacted on an estimated 10 million people affected by hidden hunger and starvation. Three of the laureates, namely Dr. Maria Andrade of Cape Verde, Dr. Robert Mwanga of Uganda, and Dr. Jan Low of the United States are from the International Potato Centre (CIP) while Dr. Howarth Bouis is from Harvestplus . The scientists have been honored for their contribution to bio-fortification and for developing and improving nutrition and health through the single most successful example of micronutrient and vitamin A bio-fortification, popularly known as the orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP), said Hilda.

She further noted that through the combined efforts of the four Laureates and many other people, over 10 million persons are now positively impacted by bio-fortified crops, with a potential of several hundred million more having their nutrition and health enhanced in the coming decades.

The Director, Commodity from the Federal Ministry of Investment, industry and Trade, Mrs. Omololu Bunmi stated that BNFB Project Nigeria is an effort to bring in better nutrient to the commodities that are being produced to bring value to human beings, adding that the white cassava is the one we are more familiar with, but it is believed that if it is fortified with vitamin A, Beta Carotene, would make it better. 

She said that the Ministry of Investment, industry and Trade have a project with National Root Crops Research Institute, Umudike on beta carotene cassava, to make it better and add value to our system, adding  that bio-fortification is what we should really embrace because it is organic and not chemical explaining that crop fortification does not make  the food worst but better, which is a life line to good health, capacity building, being able to think better, work better and the long run is longer life span, which will help the malnourished children in the country, especially the one’s under age 5. 

The Country Manager Harvest Plus in Nigeria, Mr. Paul llona, told Food farm news that fortification is the practice of deliberately increasing the content of an essential micronutrient, i.e. vitamins and minerals (including trace elements) in a food, so as to improve the nutritional quality of the food supply and provide a public health benefit with minimal risk to health. 

He explained that bio-fortification differs from conventional fortification which aims to increase nutrient levels in crops during plant growth rather than through manual means during processing of the crops and may therefore present a way to reach populations where supplementation and conventional fortification activities may be difficult to implement and limited.

llona, said that these micronutrients could be provided to millions of people through the staple foods that they eat every day, foods such as maize, sweet potato and wheat saying that while these staples are often packed full of energy, they usually lack essential micronutrients such as vitamin A, iron and zinc and that when people don’t get enough of these micronutrients, they suffer from a hidden hunger which puts them at increased risk of stunting, anemia, blindness, infectious diseases and even death with women and children being especially vulnerable.

He further stressed that bio-fortification links agriculture, nutrition and public health, thereby engaging a wide range of actors and that crop scientists, nutritionists, economists and behavioral-change experts all work together to ensure that nutrient-rich crops are effective and meet the demands of farmers and consumers.

Ilona explained that bio-fortification targets the people most at risk of hidden hunger and the foods that they habitually eat, thus making it a sustainable and cost-effective approach. And that HarvestPlus and partners focus on seven staple food crops, Vitamin A sweet potato, maize and cassava, Iron beans and pearl millet, Zinc rice and wheat. Once these crops have been distributed, farmers can often save and share the seeds, roots or tubers, so that each harvest continues to deliver better nutrition year after year.

 He further noted that, nearly half a million people in Africa and Asia are already planting or eating some of these nutrient-rich crops, all of which have been conventionally bred. As a bonus, these crops have other valuable traits, for example being high yielding and virus - or disease - resistant. What’s more, in cases where the bio-fortified crops look or taste slightly different from ordinary varieties due to their higher nutrient level, people have thus far shown a preference for them over the ordinary ones.

The Regional Director, Sub Sahara Africa for the International Potato Centre based in Nairobi, Kenya, Mr. Adiel Nkonge Mbabu described bio-fortification as a very powerful tool to most people who grow their own food, that are nutritious and can improve their health. 

He added that BNFB Project Nigeria is an initiative that provides a platform for collective action and great synergy, thereby inviting organizations, be it international or national and regional, that are already working with farmers to bring the act together so that they can figure out a way of using the resources they already have do deal with the issue of scaling up.  Mr. Paul noted that so far “we work as separate organization, although we reach those that we can, but working together in synergy and collaboration will help us reach as many as possible among those that need help”.