HarvestPlus: Biofortification

Since the founding of HarvestPlus, a joint venture by IFPRI and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), USAID has been an important partner in addressing “hidden hunger”—malnutrition caused by micronutrient deficiencies—by breeding high levels of micronutrients into staple crops through a process called biofortification. HarvestPlus has successfully improved access to biofortified crops, resulting in improved nutrition for more than 20 million people. For instance, because of increased consumption, especially among children, of vitamin A–fortified orange sweet potato, in Mozambique the likelihood of experiencing diarrhea fell by 39 percent and the duration of diarrhea episodes decreased by more than 10 percent, and in Uganda the prevalence of diarrhea among children under three declined by approximately 50 percent. In Nigeria, 2.5 million people have adopted vitamin A–fortified cassava. Ten high-iron bean varieties were introduced in Rwanda, reaching a total of 4.3 million people, and a study revealed that iron-deficient university women showed a significant increase in hemoglobin, ferritin, and total body iron after consuming biofortified beans for 4.5 months. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, high-iron bean varieties reached nearly 2 million people as of 2015. In India, more than a million people were given access to iron pearl millet, which decreased their likelihood of iron deficiency by 65 percent. In Bangladesh, HarvestPlus far exceeded its original target of reaching 11,000 households with high-zinc rice, reaching 160,000 households as of  2015.