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Is Fortification or Bio Fortification of Staple Food Crops will Offer a Simple Solution to Complex Nutritional Disorder in Developing Countries?

Govindaraj M

Large segment of global populations, especially in developing countries is currently at risk from one or more micronutrient deficiency, so called malnutrition. This could be due to our current food systems are fail to provide enough balanced dietary nutrients to meet all the nutritional requirements of every individual, especially resource-poor women and children in the developing countries. A variety of interventions have been used to address micronutrient malnutrition so far such as pharmaceutical supplementation, industrial fortifications and dietary diversification. However, success of supplementation and fortification in developing countries remains challenges due to poor infrastructure, delivery system, more often it need sustained investment year-after-year. Of course dietary diversity is an immediate issue of diverse food affordability since a sharp increase in food prices will have a large impact on rural-poor households’ who’s represent the most segment of malnourished population. Researchers now focusing an food based intervention so called biofortification (developing a cultivars with elevated micronutrients in their edible parts through convetional breeding or biotechnology) is found to be sustainable intervention, even if external support fails, biofortification will continue to combat multiple micronutrient deficiency simultaneously generation after generations. Though this strategy is not an Einstein idea but it was a pessimistic view for longtime among the community, however, with the advent of modern and advanced technology we deliberately believes it can be made successful in optimistic way by transforming the dynamic results into reality. Therefore, present view and optimism are more towards the biofortification of staples for better human nutrition to acieve appropriate nutrient level in the biofortifed cultivars and further research is required to upscale at the global level to prove as an effective strategy.