Biofortification: Better Crops, Better Nutrition

Biofortification to address nutrient deficiencies unites agriculture and nutrition to improve the health and livelihoods of smallholder farming families – still the majority of the population in developing countries. The process uses conventional crop breeding to enrich the seeds of widely consumed staple food crops with vitamin A, iron, or zinc, nutrients. Dr. Howarth Bouis, founder of HarvestPlus, spoke in this event on whether biofortification needs to complement other approaches to micronutrient deficiencies, the role U.S. researchers and policymakers have played in achieving successes to date, and the challenges to scaling up across different countries, crops, and seed systems.