The CIP and HarvestPlus 2016 World Food Prize Laureates participated in a session of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Agriculture and Food for Development that brings together UK Parliamentarians concerned with agriculture, nutrition and food security in the developing world.
The APPG session was chaired by Lord Cameron of Dillington and also attended by a number of other Lords, including Lord Cromwell with strong participation from UKAID, academic and civil society representatives. The APPG focused on the challenges and opportunities provided by biofortification – breeding critical vitamins and micronutrients into staple crops, thereby dramatically reducing “hidden hunger” and improving nutrition for millions globally.
The 2016 World Food Prize was the first ever awarded to four laureates (including three CIP scientists – Maria Andrade, Robert Mwanga and Jan Low) for nutrition work. CIP’s entire Orange Fleshed Sweetpotato (OFSP) team was also award the Al-Sumait Award for its work on advancing the science and adoption of OFSP in Sub-Saharan Africa to improve food security and nutrition.
In the course of the session the CIP laureates and Dr. Howarth Bouis (former HarvestPlus CEO and joint 2016 WFP Laureate) highlighted the advances in biofortication work and the opportunities to achieve impact at scale through policy and advocacy work in the developing work. The CIP team outlined the breeding challenges and specific advances on OFSP that, with generous support from the donor community (including strong backing from UKAID) has now achieved impact at scale through adoption by some 2.8 million households in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The Laureates underlined how the progress achieved thus far in biofortification remains incomplete, and called for further support to continue to enhance the impact of the work being carried out at present.