HarvestPlus: Progress To Date and Future Challenges
1. HarvestPlus:
Progress To Date and
Future Challenges
Howarth Bouis
HarvestPlus c/o IFPRI
2033 K Street, NW • Washington, DC 20006-1002 USA
Tel: 202-862-5600 • Fax: 202-467-4439
HarvestPlus@cgiar.org • www.HarvestPlus.org
3. % Changes in Cereal & Pulse Production
& in Population Between 1965 & 1999
Cereals Pulses Population
250
200
150
100
50
0
Developing
Developing
Developing
Bangladesh
Bangladesh
India
India
World
Pakistan
Pakistan
4. Share of Energy Source & Food Budget in Rural Bangladesh
Fish and Meat
Non-Staple
plants
Energy Source Food Budget
Staple foods
5. 50% Increase in All Food Prices
Share of Total Expenditures
Before After
Staples
Animal Staples
Non-Food Non-Food
8. Copenhagen Consensus
TOP FIVE SOLUTIONS CHALLENGE
1 Micronutrient supplements for
Malnutrition
children (vitamin A and zinc)
2 The Doha development agenda Trade
3 Micronutrient fortification
Malnutrition
(iron and salt iodization)
4 Expanded immunization
Diseases
coverage for children
5 Biofortification Malnutrition
11. #1 Breeding must increase nutrient
to levels that improve nutrition
Photo: Wolfgang Pfeiffer
12. 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
Photo: CIMMYT
discovered -- XRF
Photo: R.A. Stevens Photo: CIMMYT
13. Progress in Breeding II
•Genes identified/
MAS implemented
• Invested to
strengthen NARS
capacity
• Biofortified lines
have been submitted
to Varietal Release
Committees
Photo :IRRI
14. #2 Will extra nutrients be bioavailable at
sufficient levels to improve micronutrient
status?
15. Retinol Equivalency of provitamin A rich
foods: human studies
12:1 assumed in
defining Target Levels
Cassava
16. Photos: Neil Palmer (CIAT)
#3 Farmers must adopt crops and
consumers must buy & eat these.
17. One Crop Released...
24,000 Households reached
2007-092
Up to 68% of project HHs adopted
OSP.
Up to 47% increase in share of OSP
in total sweet potato area.
Orange Sweet
Potato (OSP) Up to a 100% increase in vitamin A
intakes for infants, children and
Vitamin A women.
Mozambique
Uganda
19. Crops for Africa & Release Dates
20112 2012 2012
Cassava Beans Maize
Vitamin A Iron (Zinc) Vitamin A
Nigeria Rwanda Zambia
DR Congo DR Congo
Crops are high-yielding and with other traits farmers want.
20. Crops for Asia & Release Dates
20122 20132 20132
Pearl Millet Rice Wheat
Iron (Zinc) Zinc Zinc
India Bangladesh India
India Pakistan
Crops are high-yielding and with other traits farmers want.
24. 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
25. • 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
Biological Sciences
Flinders University
26. • 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
27. 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.
28. Food Systems R&D
Graham Lyons et al
• 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
Slide 28
30. Solomon Islands women admiring ACIAR/HarvestPlus
local nutritious food posters at a clinic in Malaita
Slide 30
31. 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
32. Phase I Phase II Phase III
2018 >
2004 - 2008 2009 - 2013 2014 - 2018
Discovery/Research Discovery/Research
Crop Development Development
Crop Delivery
Establish new Institutionalize
partnerships and &
delivery modalities Integrate
Mass-scale delivery
Scientific proof of concept
Advocacy+ fundraising
33. 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
34. Why have solutions to
malnutrition been sought
outside of agriculture?
Photo: Neil Palmer (CIAT)
35. 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.”
"
First, what is hidden hunger? All at risk of disease and death. Stunted growth, reduced IQ, blindness, illness, and deathThose who survive to adulthood, increased risk of death during child birth, reduced ability to work, lower productivity GDP
Poor people eat least amount of nutrient-rich foods but spend the most on it,.
When food prices go up, staple food consumption is protected at expense of more nutritious foods
Biofort is…Focus on 3 micronutrients that are most limiting vitamin A, zinc, and ironHarvestPlus is breeding food crops with higher micronutrient content that will have a measurable impact on nutritional status at the public health level.
A one-time research investment to develop biofortified crops, low What struck CC was how cost-effective biofort can be..especially…
In 2008, CC came up with top 30 best solutions to GLOBAL challenges, NOT just problems in developing countries! (Fro example, climate change, terrorism were all considered).Biofort was #5…well what is biofort?
Let’s remember that most of the poor are in rural areas where they lack access to more nutritious foods. That is where our efforts are focused and other pieces of the puzzle do not work as well.
Biofortification complements other strategies to reduce micronutrient malnutrition
.
We have successfully released one crop-orange sweet potato with our partners with very promising results. Children under 5 reported consuming OSP twice a week when available. They tend to eat OSP boiled, and the amount of beta carotene consumed between OSP and other sources then exceeds the US recommended daily allowance for vitamin A when averaged over the week. We found women consuming more OSP (and vitamin A), and by and large households were consuming OSP they produced themselves. So there seems to have been enough to go around at their production levels in 2009. We are planning to do another survey next year to find out how much OSP has been retained by households that participated, to see in part if the vitamin A in the diet is still adequate three years after the project took place. More details on nutrition: The vitamin A estimated average requirement (EAR) for children is 210-275µg RAE depending on age and 500µg RAE for women. The vitamin A content of OSP in Moz was 726µg/100g in the North. If we ignore other sources of vitamin A in the diet and focus solely on OFSP (which we normally do not do), and if on average children consume 20-40g of OSP, their average vitamin A intake will be at the EAR level. For non-pregnant and non-lactating women, the equivalent amounts to be at the EAR level are 55-70g. These amounts represent half of a small OSP for children and one small OSP for women (or one half of a medium sized OSP). Our study participants at 73-81g and 144-165 g of OFSP in children and women respectively at endline far exceeded those amounts.
on breeding nutritious varieties of staple food crops eaten by the word’s poor that have more vitamins and minerals…both in Africa
and in Asia..
Not a controlled trial!Decline in CVD due to several factors
Not a controlled trial!Decline in CVD due to several factors
Make Biofortification Sustainable1st and 2nd yellow orange> make core breeding activity at ag. research centers with independent funding3rd yellow/orange> Work with local and International NGOs for mass-scale delivery (tweaking bur essentially current modalities) work with public (eg WFP) and pvt sector food companies, ag pull etc to develop new modalities of delivery. Codex.To institutionalize need a) seal of approval from WHO, MI etc based on sound efficacy studies and effectiveness. To integrate need buy-in from platforms, eg SUN/CAADP, govt policymakers etc. for biofort. to be integrated into other complmentary approaches.
“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, as their studies become concentrated on smaller and smaller fragments, soon find themselves … learning more and more about less and less. Everywhere knowledge increases at the expense of understanding …" ……The remedy is to look at the whole field covered by crop production, animal husbandry, food, nutrition, and health as one related subject and then to realize the great principle that the birthright of every crop, every animal, and every human being is health.”The Soil and Health, 1945
An English botanist and father of the organic agriculture