Food Biofortification: Reaping the Benefits of Science to Overcome Hidden Hunger

The Council for Agriculture and Science’s new Issue Paper, “Food Biofortification—Reaping the Benefits of Science to Overcome Hidden Hunger,” will be released on October 14 as part of the series on The Need for Agricultural Innovation to Sustainably Feed the World by 2050. Join Dr. Howarth Bouis, 2016 World Food Prize Laureate and lead author for this publication, as he and a panel of the task force authors present highlights from this paper followed by Q&A.

Biofortification is a process of increasing the density of minerals and vitamins in a food crop through conventional plant breeding, transgenic techniques, or agronomic practices. Biofortified staple food crops, when consumed regularly substituting one-for-one with non-biofortified staple food crops, will generate measurable improvements in human nutrition and health. This paper describes the progress made in developing, testing, and disseminating biofortified staple food crops, primarily through the use of conventional plant breeding.