HarvestPlus c/o IFPRI2033 K Street, NW • Washington, DC 20006-1002 USATel: 202-862-5600 • Fax: [email protected] • www.HarvestPlus.org
HarvestPlus: Progress To Date andFuture Challenges
Howarth Bouis
Hidden Hunger
2 billion+ affected Photo: C. Hotz
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% Changes in Cereal & Pulse Production
& in Population Between 1965 & 1999
Cereals Pulses Population
Share of Energy Source & Food Budget in Rural Bangladesh
Non-Staple plants
Fish and Meat
Energy Source Food Budget
Staple foods
After
50% Increase in All Food Prices
Animal Staples
Non-Food
Staples
Non-Food
Before
Share of Total Expenditures
Biofortification-breeding food crops that are more nutritious
Photo: D. Marchand
Cost-effective: central one time investment
Photo: ICRISAT
Copenhagen Consensus
TOP FIVE SOLUTIONSCHALLENG
E1 Micronutrient supplements for children (vitamin A and zinc) Malnutrition
2 The Doha development agenda Trade
3 Micronutrient fortification (iron and salt iodization) Malnutrition
4 Expanded immunization coverage for children Diseases
5 Biofortification Malnutrition
75% of the poor 25%
Supplementation Commercial Fortification
Biofortification
Dietary Diversity
#1 Breeding must increase nutrient to levels that improve nutrition
Photo: Wolfgang Pfeiffer
Photo: R.A. StevensPhoto: CIMMYT Photo: CIMMYT
Progress in Breeding I
• Genetic variation sufficient for conventional breeding
• No tradeoff between yield and mineral/vitamin content of seed
• Low-cost, high throughput methods to quickly screen promising lines have been discovered -- XRF
Progress in Breeding IIProgress in Breeding II
•Genes identified/ MAS implemented• Invested to strengthen NARS capacity
• Biofortified lines have been submitted to Varietal Release Committees
Photo :IRRI
#2 Will extra nutrients be bioavailable at sufficient levels to improve micronutrient status?
Retinol Equivalency of provitamin A rich foods: human studies
Cassava
12:1 assumed in defining Target Levels
#3 Farmers must adopt crops and consumers must buy & eat these.
Photos: Neil Palmer (CIAT)
2007-092
One Crop Released...
Orange Sweet Potato (OSP)Vitamin AMozambiqueUganda
24,000 Households reached
Up to 68% of project HHs adopted OSP.
Up to 47% increase in share of OSP in total sweet potato area.
Up to a 100% increase in vitamin A intakes for infants, children and women.
Impact on vitamin A intakes
20112
CassavaVitamin ANigeriaDR Congo
BeansIron (Zinc)RwandaDR Congo
MaizeVitamin AZambia
2012 2012
Crops for Africa & Release Dates
Crops are high-yielding and with other traits farmers want.
Pearl MilletIron (Zinc)India
RiceZincBangladeshIndia
WheatZincIndiaPakistan
Crops for Asia & Release Dates
20122 2013220132
Crops are high-yielding and with other traits farmers want.
Agriculture Minister presents vitamin A gari and bread to Nigerians
Delivery: New roles for HarvestPlus staff
Harvest of Orange Maize for Nutrition Efficacy Trial
Past History
• Visits to nine Centers in 1993• Inception meeting, 1994• CGIAR Micronutrients Project (1995-
2002) – DANIDA funding• IRRI conference 1999• ADB project for rice (2000-2002)
• Fast-tracked Challenge Program 2002
Biological SciencesFlinders University
• Micronutrient Technical Assistance– Target: mostly plant breeders and nutritionists (+ their
labs)• Developing protocols for harvesting crops and sample
preparation for analysis– In-country workshops (training)
• Identifying sources of contamination in labs and equipment– Troubleshooting problems
• Identifying new ways to analyse for Fe, Zn and carotenoids– Rapid screening techniques to get the job done quickly and at
minimal cost– XRF for Fe and Zn; ATR FT-IR for carotenoids
• Providing nutrient analysis to a large host of HarvestPlus collaborators
• Capacity Building– Building up the capacity for labs to do their own
analysis• Rolled out 12 XRF units around the world in the
past 1.5 years• Providing on-going support (through visits,
electronic correspondence, proficiency studies)• Setting up phytate analysis at ICDDR,B in
Bangladesh
• Molecular marker development in wheat• Association Mapping Panel
• 330 genotypes; >90K SNP markers; grown in Mexico and India (target country)
• Will use as a training panel for genomic selection
• Also providing analytical and physiological support
Biofortified rice to prevent iron deficiency
• Rice grain is usually milled to remove the oily outer layers that cause grain to go rancid – polished rice. Unfortunately, most iron and other key micronutrients are also removed. A problem for all of the major cereals.
• By increasing uptake of iron from soil and the solubility of iron in plant tissues, we have generated GM rice lines that have 4-fold more iron in polished rice and meet our target concentration of 14 ppm iron.
C The increased iron in polished rice (A) is positively correlated with nicotianamine content (B). Recent work at the Australian Synchrotron shows that the increased iron (C, in green) accumulates in the outer endosperm region of the grain.
Slide 28
• Agronomic biofortification is feasible for Se (soil or foliar), Zn (foliar) & I (soil, for leafy vegs, pasture)
• Biofortified Se in wheat is heat-resistant and highly bioavailable
• Nutrition education, utilisation of local food crop diversity, village-level crop trials and introduction of improved genotypes improve micronutrient delivery in deficient populations
• Current food system programs in Pacific, N Aust and Indonesia aimed at improving human health
• African studies planned: SeZn+NPKS fertiliser in Malawi; nutritional supplement v HIV disease
Food Systems R&D Graham Lyons et al
Slide 29
Popular Beauregard OSP introduced to Solomon Islands by ACIAR & HarvestPlus
Slide 30
Solomon Islands women admiring ACIAR/HarvestPlus local nutritious food posters at a clinic in Malaita
Challenges for Phase 3 (2014-18)
Scale up Delivery in Target Countries • 10-12 countries• Approx. $2 million per country-crop• New releases from breeding pipeline• Measure impact
Discovery/Research
Crop Development
Discovery/Research
Development
Mass-scale delivery
Phase I2004 - 2008
Phase II2009 - 2013
Phase III2014 - 2018
Scientific proof of concept
Establish new partnerships and
delivery modalities
2018 >
Crop Delivery
Advocacy+ fundraising
Institutionalize&
Integrate
Challenges for Phase 3 (2014-18)
Make Biofortification Sustainable• Core breeding activity at ag. research
centers • Work with International NGOs• Approval from WHO, SUN etc• UN Agencies, e.g. World Food Program• Funding from Health donors• Spinoff institution – Fund, technical
Why have solutions to malnutrition been sought outside of agriculture?
Photo: Neil Palmer (CIAT)
In Conclusion …“Such intimately related subjects as agriculture, food, nutrition and health have become split up into innumerable rigid and self-contained little units, each in the hands of some group of specialists. The experts, …soon find themselves…learning more and more about less and less…The remedy is to look at the whole field covered by crop production, animal husbandry, food, nutrition, and health as one related subject and…to realize…that the birthright of every crop, every animal, and every human being is health.”
"
Sir Albert Howard, 1873-1947
“The Soil and Health,” 1945
