Howarth E. Bouis

Addressing micronutrient malnutrition through enhancing the nutritional quality of staple foods: Principles, perspectives and knowledge gaps

Abstract Five years ago, with international funding, several international agricultural research centers set out to explore the potential to improve the micronutrient quality of some staple food crops. Five objectives were identified, and all needed a favorable result if breeding for higher micronutrient density in the staples were to be deemed feasible. Useful genetic variation to exploit was needed. The traits needed to be manageable in a breeding program (simple screening and high heritability), and stable across a wide range of environments if impact was to be large. Above all, the traits needed to be combinable with traits for high yield to ensure that farmers chose the improved lines. Finally, it was necessary to show that the new types actually improved the health of humans of low nutrient status representing the target populations. The extra nutrients needed to be bioavailable to the gut. Today, only this last essential criterion remains to be fully satisfied. All other criteria are met to levels that lead us to claim that breeding for nutritional quality is a viable, practicable, and cost-effective strategy to complement existing interventionist strategies. Subject to satisfying the last criterion, and results are encouraging, we call for a major funding initiative, and the installation of a new paradigm for 21st century agriculture: one espousing food systems that are highly productive, sustainable, and nutritious. This paper reviews the case for and the rationale behind the project that is underway, gives an overview of the results to date and looks at the critical issues that still remain to be confronted.

Nutritious subsistence food systems

The major subsistence food systems of the world that feed resource‐poor populations are identified and their capacity to supply essential nutrients in reasonable balance to the people dependent on them has been considered for some of these with a view to overcoming their nutrient limitations in sound agronomic and sustainable ways. The approach discusses possible cropping system improvements and alternatives in terms of crop combinations, external mineral supply, additional crops, and the potential for breeding staples in order to enhance their nutritional balance while maintaining or improving the sustainability and dietary, agronomic, and societal acceptability of the system. The conceptual framework calls for attention first to balancing crop nutrition that in nearly every case will also increase crop productivity, allowing sufficient staple to be produced on less land so that the remaining land can be devoted to more nutrient‐dense and nutrient‐balancing crops. Once this is achieved, the additional requirements of humans and animals (vitamins, selenium, and iodine) can be addressed. Case studies illustrate principles and strategies. This chapter is a proposal to widen the range of tools and strategies that could be adopted in the HarvestPlus Challenge Program to achieve its goals of eliminating micronutrient deficiencies in the food systems of resource‐poor countries.

Are estimates of calorie-income fxelasticities too high?: A recalibration of the plausible range

Abstract The wide range of calorie-income elasticities in the literature results, in large part, from the particular calorie and income variables used for estimation. Elasticities across four estimation techniques and four calorie-income variable pairs for a sample of Philippine farm households, ranged from 0.03 to 0.59. Estimates associated with calorie availability are biased upwards, first, because random errors in measuring food purchases are transmitted (by construction) both to calorie availability and total expenditures, and second, because the residual difference between family calorie intake and household calorie availability will often increase with income. The calorie intake-total expenditure variable pair gives the preferred elasticity estimate in the 0.08–0.14 range.

The effect of income on demand for food in poor countries: Are our food consumption databases giving us reliable estimates?

Abstract Cross-section estimates of income elasticities for food staples in the aggregate based on quantity information from household food expenditure surveys are often in the 0.3–0.6 range. It is shown that differences in per capita calorie intakes across income groups implied by these income elasticities are grossly inconsistent with observed differences in bodyweights. Moreover, time series data frequently indicate that national per capita consumption of food staples in the aggregate remains constant even as per capita gross national product rises substantially. Cross-section income elasticity estimates are biased upwards due to the failure of food expenditure surveys to undertake an accurate accounting of food transfers from high to low income groups, biases which are not generated by survey techniques which record food intakes directly.

Weighing what's practical: proxy means tests for targeting food subsidies in Egypt

Abstract Despite achieving a significant cost reduction over the past two decades, the absolute cost of food subsidies in Egypt is still high relative to the benefits received by the poor. There is scope for better targeting these food subsidies, in particular for targeting cooking oil and sugar ration cards, both because reforms in this area are perceived to be far less politically sensitive than adjusting subsidy policy for bread and wheat flour and because higher income groups presently receive a significant percentage of the benefits. Targeting the high-subsidy green ration cards to the poor and the low-subsidy red ration cards to the nonpoor will require identification of both poor and nonpoor households. An International Food Policy Research Institute research team in Egypt, in collaboration with the Egyptian Ministry of Trade and Supply, developed a proxy means test for targeting ration cards. The paper describes the process of moving from the optimal income-predicting model to the final model that was both administratively and politically feasible. An ex-ante evaluation of the levels of accuracy of the proxy means testing model indicates that the model performs quite well in predicting the needy and nonneedy households. An effective and full implementation of this targeting method would increase the equity in the ration card food subsidy system, and, at the same time, the total budgetary costs of rationed food subsidies would decline. Moreover, the experience gained under this reform would facilitate targeting future social interventions to reduce and prevent poverty in Egypt.

2. Genetically modified food crops and their contribution to human nutrition and food quality

This chapter discusses the potential of biotechnology to improve the health and nutrition of consumers in developing countries. In the relatively wealthy countries of Europe, North America and elsewhere, consumers spend perhaps 10% of their income on food. For the most part consumers in developed countries are free of classical nutrient deficiencies, although over-consumption is a problem for some. Also in relatively wealthy countries there is, in general, good access to affordable medical care to meet health needs and most consumers in rich countries have access to a relatively inexpensive supply of safe and healthy food.

The potential of genetically modified food crops to improve human nutrition in developing countries

Abstract Because of poor dietary quality and consequent widespread micronutrient malnutrition in low income countries, children and their mothers, who have higher requirements for vitamins and minerals due to rapid growth and reproduction respectively, have higher mortality, become sick more often, have their cognitive abilities compromised for a lifetime, and are less productive members of the workforce. Their quality of life and aggregate economic growth are unnecessarily compromised. One way that biotechnology can help to improve the nutrition and health of consumers in developing countries is by increasing the vitamin and mineral content and their bioavailability in staple foods.

Enrichment of food staples through plant breeding : A new strategy for fighting micronutrient malnutrition

Taken together, mineral and vitamin deficiencies affect a greater number of people in the world than does protein-energy malnutrition. If farmers could be induced to grow commonly eaten food staple crops that fortify their seeds with essential vitamins and minerals, a significant, lower cost improvement in human nutrition might occur.

Does it matter how we survey demand for food?: Evidence from Kenya and the Philippines

Abstract This article examines the reliability of food quantity information collected from expenditure surveys, and finds that measurement errors will very often be systematically correlated with income, such that the response of food intakes to increases in income is seriously overstated. This may be, firstly, because food quantities are not measured independently of income if total expenditures are the proxy used for income, and secondly, because food transfers in the form of guest and hired worker meals are under-recorded. These biases are illustrated using household surveys from Kenya and the Philippines.

The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Micronutrients Project: Justification and Objectives

The general objective of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Micronutrients Project is to assemble the package of tools that plant breeders will need to produce mineral- and vitamin-dense cultivars. The target crops are rice, wheat, maize, phaseolus beans, and cassava. The target micronutrients are iron, zinc, and vitamin A. The combining of benefits for human nutrition and agricultural productivity, resulting from breeding staple food crops that are more efficient in the uptake of trace minerals from the soil and that load more trace minerals into their seeds, results in extremely high ex ante estimates of benefit–cost ratios for investments in agricultural research in this area. This finding derives from the confluence of several complementary factors. The rates of micronutrient malnutrition are high, as are the consequent costs to human welfare and economic productivity. High trace mineral density in seeds produces more viable and vigorous seedlings, and efficiency in the uptake of trace minerals improves disease resistance. Trace-mineral-“deficient” soils in fact contain high amounts of trace minerals that are “unavailable” to staple crop varieties presently grown. Adoption of nutritionally improved varieties by farmers can rely on profit incentives; delivery to consumers can rely on existing demand behaviour. Relatively small investments in agricultural research at a central research location may be disseminated widely. Breeding advances are derived from initial, fixed costs, with low recurring costs. The encouraging research results obtained to date under the project would seem to justify a much expanded effort in the future.