HarvestPlus: Progress To Date andFuture Challenges

HarvestPlus c/o IFPRI2033 K Street, NW • Washington, DC 20006-1002 USATel: 202-862-5600 • Fax: 202-467-4439HarvestPlus@cgiar.org • www.HarvestPlus.org

HarvestPlus: Progress To Date andFuture Challenges

Howarth Bouis

Hidden Hunger

2 billion+ affected Photo: C. Hotz

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% Changes in Cereal & Pulse Production

& in Population Between 1965 & 1999

Cereals Pulses Population

Share of Energy Source & Food Budget in Rural Bangladesh

Non-Staple plants

Fish and Meat

Energy Source Food Budget

Staple foods

After

50% Increase in All Food Prices

Animal Staples

Non-Food

Staples

Non-Food

Before

Share of Total Expenditures

Biofortification-breeding food crops that are more nutritious

Photo: D. Marchand

Cost-effective: central one time investment

Photo: ICRISAT

Copenhagen Consensus

TOP FIVE SOLUTIONSCHALLENG

E1 Micronutrient supplements for children (vitamin A and zinc) Malnutrition

2 The Doha development agenda Trade

3 Micronutrient fortification (iron and salt iodization) Malnutrition

4 Expanded immunization coverage for children Diseases

5 Biofortification Malnutrition

75% of the poor 25%

Supplementation Commercial Fortification

Biofortification

Dietary Diversity

#1 Breeding must increase nutrient to levels that improve nutrition

Photo: Wolfgang Pfeiffer

Photo: R.A. StevensPhoto: CIMMYT Photo: CIMMYT

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 discovered -- XRF

Progress in Breeding IIProgress in Breeding II

•Genes identified/ MAS implemented• Invested to strengthen NARS capacity

• Biofortified lines have been submitted to Varietal Release Committees

Photo :IRRI

#2 Will extra nutrients be bioavailable at sufficient levels to improve micronutrient status?

Retinol Equivalency of provitamin A rich foods: human studies

Cassava

12:1 assumed in defining Target Levels

#3 Farmers must adopt crops and consumers must buy & eat these.

Photos: Neil Palmer (CIAT)

2007-092

One Crop Released...

Orange Sweet Potato (OSP)Vitamin AMozambiqueUganda

24,000 Households reached

Up to 68% of project HHs adopted OSP.

Up to 47% increase in share of OSP in total sweet potato area.

Up to a 100% increase in vitamin A intakes for infants, children and women.

Impact on vitamin A intakes

20112

CassavaVitamin ANigeriaDR Congo

BeansIron (Zinc)RwandaDR Congo

MaizeVitamin AZambia

2012 2012

Crops for Africa & Release Dates

Crops are high-yielding and with other traits farmers want.

Pearl MilletIron (Zinc)India

RiceZincBangladeshIndia

WheatZincIndiaPakistan

Crops for Asia & Release Dates

20122 2013220132

Crops are high-yielding and with other traits farmers want.

Agriculture Minister presents vitamin A gari and bread to Nigerians

Delivery: New roles for HarvestPlus staff

Harvest of Orange Maize for Nutrition Efficacy Trial

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

Biological SciencesFlinders University

• 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

• 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

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.

Slide 28

• 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

Food Systems R&D Graham Lyons et al

Slide 29

Popular Beauregard OSP introduced to Solomon Islands by ACIAR & HarvestPlus

Slide 30

Solomon Islands women admiring ACIAR/HarvestPlus local nutritious food posters at a clinic in Malaita

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

Discovery/Research

Crop Development

Discovery/Research

Development

Mass-scale delivery

Phase I2004 - 2008

Phase II2009 - 2013

Phase III2014 - 2018

Scientific proof of concept

Establish new partnerships and

delivery modalities

2018 >

Crop Delivery

Advocacy+ fundraising

Institutionalize&

Integrate

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

Why have solutions to malnutrition been sought outside of agriculture?

Photo: Neil Palmer (CIAT)

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.”

"

Sir Albert Howard, 1873-1947

“The Soil and Health,” 1945