Cs Praharaj

Biofortification of Food Crops

The chapters presented in this book Biofortification of Food Crops depict how agricultural technological interventions have true role in alleviating malnutrition. This book highlights the role of multidisciplinary approaches to cope up with the challenges of micronutrient malnutrition or hidden hunger which is an alarming public health issue in most parts of the world including India. In this endeavour, different biofortification approaches such as agronomic (or ferti-fortification), breeding, biotechnological, physiological, microbial etc. has fulfilled their different mandates of nutrient enrichment of food crops including cereals and pulses. The contents of the book proves that biofortified plants have adequate potential to nourish nutrient depleted soils, help increase crop productivity and provide nutritional benefits to plants, humans and livestock. The content and quality of information presented in this book will definitely provide multiple novel ideas of advance techniques and will stimulate innovative thoughts and directions amongst researchers and policy makers in the field of biofortification. In addition, the contributions presented in the book will be a good source of background knowledge and technical know-how to educate the readers about biofortification. The authors hope that the book entitled Biofortification of Food Crops would provide a suitable platform in our collective efforts for an appropriate dialogue among the scientists, researchers, entrepreneurs, policy makers and farmers in reducing the budding issues of malnutrition through novel approaches and means

Biofortification: Introduction, Approaches, Limitations, and Challenges

Micronutrient malnutrition is known to affect more than half of the world’s population and considered to be among the most serious global challenges to humankind. Modern plant breeding has been historically oriented toward achieving high agronomic yields rather than nutritional quality, and other efforts related to alleviating the problem have been primarily through industrial fortification or pharmaceutical supplementation. Micronutrient malnutrition or the hidden hunger is very common among women and preschool children caused mainly by low dietary intake of micronutrients, especially Zn and Fe. Biofortification, the process of increasing the bioavailable concentrations of essential elements in edible portions of crop plants through agronomic intervention or genetic selection, may be the solution to malnutrition or hidden hunger mitigation. The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research has been investigating the genetic potential to increase bioavailable Fe and Zn in staple food crops such as rice, wheat, maize, common beans, and cassava.

Biofortification: Pathway Ahead and Future Challenges

A large share of global population is affected by mineral and vitamin deficiency, particularly in the developing countries. Recent estimates exposed the problem will be more disappointing in the near future. Biofortification is emerging as a potential crop-based approach to deal with the mineral malnutrition problem by enriching the density of bioavailable micronutrients and vitamins in food products. In recent years, significant advancement has been made in the fundamental understanding of micronutrient acquisition and translocation in soil-plant system. However, the current knowledge base in this area needs significant advancement to accelerate the pace of biofortification programme. Apart from the conventional breeding techniques, possible transgenic and agronomic approaches have also been identified for increasing the zinc, iron, selenium and iodine concentrations in the edible parts of food crops. Although these approaches are useful to address the mineral malnutrition problems worldwide, the effectiveness of the biofortification programme essentially relies on the farmers’ and consumers’ acceptance and future policy interventions. Therefore, strategic research and appropriate policy can lead to biofortification’s grand success in the near future. In this chapter, we discussed the current knowledge and future prospects of crop biofortification.

Grain Legumes for Resource Conservation and Agricultural Sustainability in South Asia

Degradation of natural resources is a major environmental concern that threatens the agroecosystem health and food security in South Asian countries. About 1.8 billion people (24% of world population) are living in this region in an area of 5.03 km2. The higher population pressure on agricultural land (7 person ha−1) has further threatened the existing resources to a great extent. Thus, conserving natural resource base is essential to feed the burgeoning population. Continuous practice of cereal-cereal rotation including rice-wheat in Indo-Gangetic plains have emerged several soil- and environmental-related issues. Diversification of cereal-cereal cropping systems is warranted to mitigate those issues and to adapt to the changing climatic condition and to enhance the resource-use efficiency on a sustainable basis. Grain legumes are the suitable candidate crop for diversification because of its inherent capacity to build up soil health and in conserving natural resources. There exists a large scope to introduce pulses as the second crop in 22.2 million hectare areas of rice fallows in India, Bangladesh, and Nepal. System intensification with inclusion of mungbean in summer fallows of rice-wheat cropping system could add an additional pulse crops area of 1.0 m ha in Indo-Gangetic plains. Several alternative grain legume inclusive crop rotations have been identified for the different agro-zones that certainly could play an important role in popularizing the conservation of agriculture in cereal-dominated production systems of South Asia. Endowed with an inherent potential biological N-fixation (30–150 kg N ha−1), of the deep root system, the root exudates mediated P-solubilization, and nutrient-rich residues of grain legumes improve the soil fertility and enhance the soil profile nutrient cycling. Crop diversification with grain legumes has additional benefits associated with improving water productivity, reducing input cost, and minimizing incidence of diseases and pests. Besides this, the low application rate of the N fertilizer to grain legumes has the advantage of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and groundwater pollution. Thus, grain legumes would play a crucial role in resource conservation, ecosystem balance, and in the sustainability of agricultural systems of South Asia.

Improving Protein Density in Food Legumes Through Agronomic Interventions

Agronomic biofortification is the easiest and fastest way for biofortification of cereals and pulses with Fe, Zn or other micromineral nutrients especially in developing Asian and African countries, where these are considered as the staple food. Agronomic biofortification is the only way to reach the poorest of the poor rural masses, those who will never have money to buy mineral supplements nor can afford to improve the components of their diet by incorporating animal products. It is suggested by scientific evidences that biofortification is feasible technically and even it can be achievable without negotiating for agronomic productivity. Cost–benefit analyses that are predicted also do support biofortification as being imperative in the armamentarium for monitoring micronutrient deficiencies and its control. However, the pertinent challenges facing all of us are about the accessibility of biofortified crop in large scale with proven purity and quality standards and to get producers/consumers acceptance for such biofortified crops and increase their intake. With the inception of good seed production and utilisation systems, the development of markets and market-oriented products and creation of demand for these, the commercial exploitation of crops with nutrient fortification can be possible and achievable. Amongst different types of malnutrition, protein malnutrition is the foremost one as it plays the pivotal role in health and nutrition of both human and animals. Besides protein malnutrition, deficiencies due to vitamin A, iron and zinc do affect over half of the population of the world. Although ample progress has been achieved to control these deficiencies through food fortification and supplementation, yet renewed and vigorous approaches are needed, especially to reach a sizeable mass of rural poor. It is true especially for reaching the Millennium Development Goals (now, Sustainable Development Goals)that aims at reducing by at least two-thirds the under-five child mortality ratio and three-quarters the maternal mortality ratio by 2020. Therefore, biofortification of staple food crops including food legumes is a new public health approach to contain protein (and of course deficiencies of vitamin A, iron and zinc) in poor countries. This chapter gives a brief insight of the technology for improving protein density in food or seed legumes through agronomic interventions.