Biofortification: Conventional Plant Breeding to Increase the Nutrient Density of Commonly Consumed Staple Foods

One in two children and two in three women worldwide are likely to have at least one micronutrient deficiency and many suffer from more than one. Around 60% of the world calorie intake comes from the major staples, wheat, rice and maize and many more calories come from local staples such as beans, cassava, millets and potatoes. These staples provide the perfect means to deliver more micronutrients into the diets of millions of people. Biofortification through plant breeding can improve the micronutrient content of the world’s favourite staples and CGIAR (formerly the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research), through the HarvestPlus project, has put this theory into practice by reaching up to 330 million consumers in Latin America, Africa and Asia. While this seems like a large number, work is required to sustainably embed the intervention and to scale it to all consumers using an agriculturally based strategy that will remain in commercial food systems for generations to come.