‘GOSPEL TRUTH’ ABOUT BIOFORTIFICATION

Olapeju Phorbee; Adeola Ojo; Hilda Munyua & Joyce Maru international Potato Center (CIP)-Nigeria.

47TH NUTRITION SOCIETY OF NIGERIA CONFERENCE 22 SEPT. 2017

Outline • Introduction

• Food-based approaches to addressing micronutrient malnutrition

• Biofortification as an approach!!!

• Some of the fallacies around biofortified crops

• Biofortification

• Biofortification Vs Conventional fortification

• Why the need for biofortification?

• Advantages of biofortification

• Biofortification Techniques

• Are Biofortified crops GMOs?

• Indicators of non-GMOs

• Available Biofortified crops in Africa

• Some other key truths about biofortified crops

Introduction

• Deficiencies of vitamin A, iron, and zinc affect over one-half of the world's population.

• Progress has been made towards their control through supplementation and food fortification

Food-based approaches to addressing micronutrient malnutrition

• Dietary diversification • Biofortification

• Each of these approaches has made appreciable contributions towards the fight against micronutrient malnutrition.

• Also, each has its shortcomings thus limiting impact.

• In as much as Biofortification is one proven appropriate option, it is also plagued in acceptance and adoption because of fallacies and misconceptions around it.

• This is obviously limiting exploitation of its full complimentary benefits to reducing hidden hunger in Africa.

Biofortification as an approach!!!

Some of the fallacies around biofortified crops

• They are GMOs • They can cause cancer & other

NCDs • The color causes yellow fever • Too much of it can cause

toxicity • They can cause diabetics-

Orange-Fleshed sweetpotato • Etc etc etc!!!!

• Controversies in Nutrition’ to document some key truths around Biofortification

Ibadan (Ki Ni So??) 2017…………….

This presentation is therefore keying into Ibadan 2017 theme

Biofortification

• Biofortification is a relatively new complimentary public health, nutrition-sensitive agriculture-based approach to addressing micronutrient deficiency.

• A process by which the nutritional quality of food crops is improved through agronomic practices, conventional plant breeding, or modern biotechnology.

• It involves increasing staple crop nutrient concentration without sacrificing agronomic traits (i.e. yield, pest resistance, drought tolerance, etc.)

• So far focus on iron, pro-vitamin A carotenoids, zinc

• Targets mainly poor rural populations

Biofortification Vs Conventional fortification

• Differs from conventional fortification as •

It aims to improve nutrient levels in crops during plant growth rather than through manual means during processing of crops or additions thereafter (fortification)

• Aims at reaching populations where supplementation and conventional fortification programs may be difficult to implement and/ or limited

Why the need for biofortification?

• Globally... • About 2 billion people suffer from iron deficiency • Quarter of the world’s population is at risk of inadequate

zinc intakes, & vitamin A deficient.

• Biofortification can answer all 3 major dimensions of hunger

• PROTEIN DEFICIENCY Bean biofortification • CALORIE DEPRIVATION Root, Tuber, Banana & Cereals • MICRONUTRIENT DEFICIENCY Vitamin A, Iron, Zinc

Advantages of biofortification • Biofortification has complimentary advantage as it reaches populations where

supplementation and food fortification activities are difficult to implement.

• It is a cost-effective method to reach millions of people on a sustainable basis, building on households’ staples.

• Biofortification is not a ‘vogue’ technology, it is highly sustainable with good seed systems, product development, markets and demand creation in place.

• Nutritionally improved varieties will continue to be grown and consumed from time to time with or without government support and international funding for micronutrient issues.

• Also, Biofortification is not a ‘stand-alone’ technology as it links agriculture, nutrition and public health, thereby engaging a wide range of actors-Crop Scientists, Nutritionists, Economists and Behavioral-change & Communication Experts all work together to ensure that nutrient-rich crops effectively meet the demands of farmers and consumers.

Biofortification Techniques • Biofortified crops can be developed by

• Agronomic biofortification, which entail application of

minerals such as zinc or iron as foliar or soil applications, drawing on plant management, soil factors, and plant characteristics to get enhanced content of key minerals into the edible portion of the plant.

Biofortification contd…….

• Conventional breeding techniques • This has been in practice since the dawn of agriculture

• It involves plant breeders exploiting natural variations existing within the

crops by selecting certain desirable traits in a plant to create improved varieties of plants.

• It takes time to achieve

• The more nutritious seeds are used to breed new crop varieties with higher micronutrient content that are also high yielding with other traits that farmers want, taking them through farmers’ participatory tests to ensure adoption.

Biofortification techniques contd…. • Genetic Engineering-which is the process of inserting specific genes of desired

micronutrients from one material into that of another unrelated material lacking the micronutrients. In this case, the crops are called GMOs or transgenic varieties.

• Genetically modified foods, GM foods or genetically engineered foods, are foods produced from organisms that have had changes introduced into their DNA using the methods of genetic engineering as opposed to traditional or conventional cross breeding.

• Examples include like in the case of golden rice, which is not yet possibly bred by conventional method because β-carotene has not been identified in the endosperm of any rice variety.

• However, all transgenic varieties are GMOs but not all GMOs are transgenic.

Are Biofortified crops GMOs?

If bred through genetic engineering,

GMO

If bred through conventional technique

NOT GMO

All our biofortified crops are NOT GMOs

Biofortified crops from conventional breeding and agronomic fortification are not GMOs and those are the ones mostly produced in Africa. Biofortified orange-fleshed sweetpotato, yellow cassava and orange maize bred and being promoted by CIP, IITA and HarvestPlus in Nigeria with National Research Institutes are conventional.

Indicators of non-GMOs

• They pass through national release committee and not bio-safety

• Planting materials can be transferred.

• For packaged products, labels

Available biofortified crops

• Crop Nutrient Countries Release Year • Sweet Potato (OFSP) Provitamin A Uganda, Kenya & 2007

• Mozambique • Nigeria 2012

• Bean Iron, Zinc Rwanda 2011 • Cassava Provitamin A Nigeria 2011

• Maize Provitamin A Zambia 2013 • Nigeria 2017??

• Sorghum & Millet Iron & Zinc Nigeria

Some other key truths about biofortified crops

• They have low-medium glycemic index thus not a threat to diabetes as it controls the release of sugar into the blood stream.

• The high vitamin A content are health-friendly

• Being plant based vitamin A (carotenoid), there is no fear of toxicity as the carotenoid regulates its retinol conversion

The truth around the biofortified crop colors

• The colors of biofortified are indicative of the micronutrient present.

• For provitamin crops, the colors are yellow/orange; the brighter the color, the more the beta carotene present.

• The color has nothing to to with yellow fever, rather it is protective of illnesses.

The Building Nutritious Food Baskets: Scaling up Biofortified Crops for Nutrition Security seeks to reduce hidden hunger by catalyzing sustainable investment for the production and utilization of biofortified crops (Orange-fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP); vitamin A (yellow) cassava, vitamin A (orange) maize and high iron/zinc beans) at scale. The project is implemented in Nigeria and Tanzania, to demonstrate how biofortified crops can be scaled up through a multi-crop (“food basket”) approach. BNFB draws on complementary expertise for scaling up through a partnership between CGIAR centers and programs, regional organizations and other public and private sector agencies to create a movement that will eventually reach the target populations. BNFB’s hypothesis is that scaling up is dependent on supportive policy environment, strong institutional capacities and availability of proven technologies.

Combating hidden hunger though nutritious food baskets

THANK YOU!!!!!