Biofortification
breeding crops for higher nutritional value
Biofortification is the practice of breeding crops to increase their nutritional value. This can be done either through conventional selective breeding, or through genetic engineering.
Biofortification differs from ordinary fortification because it focuses on making plant foods more nutritious as the plants are growing, rather than having nutrients added to the foods when they are being processed. This is an important improvement on ordinary fortification when it comes to providing nutrients for the rural poor, who rarely have access to commercially fortified foods.
Biofortification is seen as an upcoming strategy for dealing with deficiencies of micronutrients in low and middle-income countries. In the case of iron deficiency, the WHO estimated that biofortification could help cure the 2 billion people with anemia.
Methodology
Plants can be bred by selective breeding. In this method, plant breeders search seed or germplasm banks for existing varieties of crops which are naturally high in nutrients. They then crossbreed these high-nutrient varieties with high-yielding varieties of crops, to provide a seed with high yields and increased nutritional value. Crops must be bred with sufficient amounts of nutrients to have a measurable positive impact on human health.
The public source identifies “Biofortification” as breeding crops for higher nutritional value. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Biofortification, breeding and crops.
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This entry incorporates text from “Biofortification” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.