Farming For Nutrition: The Promise Of Biofortified Crops

Importance of a Balanced Diet

A balanced, nutritious diet is essential for healthy growth and development at every stage of life. It plays a crucial role in maintaining physical and mental well-being, preventing diseases, and supporting essential body functions. Our food requires vital nutrients such as energy, protein, healthy fats, vitamins, antioxidants, and minerals but most of which our bodies cannot produce and must be obtained from the diet.

However, some foods also contain anti-nutritional compounds that hinder nutrient absorption and affect overall health. Around the world, billions of people suffer the consequences of poor or unbalanced diets, resulting in chronic health problems and significant socio-economic challenges. For decades, agriculture has prioritized high-yielding crop varieties to meet the food demands of a growing population. While this approach has improved food availability, there's now a pressing need to focus on nutritional quality, not just quantity.

Understanding Malnutrition: A Global Health Crisis

The World Health Organization (WHO, 2021) defines malnutrition as deficiencies, excesses, or imbalances in energy or nutrient intake. Malnutrition is not solely a result of food scarcity. It is deeply rooted in poor diet quality, lack of nutrition education, inadequate healthcare, and social inequality. It affects people across all age groups and is a leading contributor to poor health outcomes worldwide.

Types of Malnutrition:

Undernutrition

Occurs when the body lacks essential nutrients.

• Stunting: Chronic undernutrition resulting in short stature for age.

• Wasting: Rapid weight loss or thinness for height due to acute undernutrition.

• Underweight: A combination of both stunting and wasting.

Severe forms:

• Marasmus: Severe energy deficiency causing extreme weight loss.

• Kwashiorkor: Severe protein deficiency causing swelling and fluid retention.

Micronutrient deficiencies (e.g. vitamin A, iron, iodine) are also widespread, especially among children, affecting immunity, growth, and cognitive development.

Overnutrition

Caused by consuming more energy than needed.

Overweight and obesity

• Increased risk of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, some cancers.

The Double Burden of Malnutrition

Many individuals and communities suffer from both undernutrition and overnutrition simultaneously which highlights systemic failures in food systems, healthcare, and education.

• A child may be stunted in early life and become overweight later.

• An adult may be obese yet deficient in essential micronutrients.

A closer look on global burden of malnutrition (2022) shows:

Child Malnutrition

• 148 million children under 5 were stunted (too short for their age), reflecting chronic undernutrition.

• 45 million were wasted (too thin for their height), indicating acute malnutrition.

• 37 million were overweight or obese, showing rising overnutrition even among young children.

• Nearly half of all child deaths under 5 are linked to undernutrition.

Adult Malnutrition

• 2.5 billion adults were overweight, including 890 million living with obesity.

• About 390 million adults were underweight, showing malnutrition in both its extremes.

India ranks 101^st out of 116 countries on the Global Hunger Index (GHI). As per the WHO Global Nutrition Targets 2025, India’s GHI score stands at 27.5, placing the country in the ‘serious’ hunger category.

The Role of Biofortification in Combating Malnutrition

Despite the release of thousands of crop varieties over the years, biofortified varieties that are grown for higher nutrient content remain very few. However, their importance is growing rapidly due to their potential to improve public health and ensure nutritional security, especially in resource-poor settings.

Merits of Biofortification:

• Biofortification offers a long-term and sustainable solution to address malnutrition.

• It enhances the nutritional value of crops naturally, allowing individuals to consume essential nutrients through their regular diet.

• Since biofortified foods are priced similarly to conventional ones, they remain affordable for the general population.

• Farmers benefit equally, as biofortified crop varieties yield just as much as traditional ones, ensuring no reduction in productivity or profit.

• The process does not demand sophisticated infrastructure, unlike conventional food fortification techniques.

• It also avoids the need for complex distribution channels typically associated with supplying medical supplements.

• No extra Investment is required for the preparation of nutrient-rich grains, making it a cost-efficient approach for improving public health.

Biofortification: A Sustainable Solution to Hidden Hunger

Biofortification is a cutting-edge approach that boosts the nutrient content of staple crops such as rice, maize, beans, millets and sweet potatoes. It targets key deficiencies in iron, zinc, and vitamin A, helping address hidden hunger which is a widespread form of malnutrition caused by a lack of essential micronutrients. Unlike traditional food fortification (adding nutrients during processing) or supplementation (pills or syrups), biofortification works at the seed level.

Using breeding, genetic engineering, and gene editing techniques, it enriches crops from the inside out, making nutrient-rich foods more accessible without changing people’s eating habits or relying on industry infrastructure. Some successful examples of Biofortification include Golden Rice (enriched with vitamin A), Iron-fortified beans, Zinc-rich rice, Vitamin A rich sweet potatoes and maize, iron and zinc rich pearl millet, β-carotene rich cauliflower, iron, zinc and vitamin C enriched Pomegranate etc.

Farmers can procure biofortified crop varieties from ICAR institutes, KVKs, or State Agricultural Universities, either for large-scale cultivation or on a trial basis. These institutions often provide seeds during frontline demonstrations (FLDs), field trials, or training programs to promote awareness and adoption of nutrient-rich crops.

The biofortified crops are now grown in over 35 countries, reaching more than 40 million people, particularly in low-income areas where diet diversity is limited. Biofortification offers a cost-effective, long-term solution for improving diets and breaking the cycle of malnutrition. By improving both nutritional quality and accessibility, it plays a vital role in advancing Global nutrition security and public health.