Photo: Ayub Farhat/IRINZinc-rich rice - coming soon to markets if scientists have their way
DHAKA, 8 March 2011 (IRIN) - Scientists are using selective plant breeding known as bio-fortification to mass produce a high-zinc rice in Bangladesh within the next five years that can reduce micronutrient shortages.
Unlike typical food fortification, when a mineral is added to a food once it has been harvested and processed, with bio-fortification, scientists seek out nature’s super foods to boost the nutrition of less enriched varieties either through genetic modification or selective breeding.
More rice is consumed per person in Bangladesh than in any other country where it is considered a staple food, according to local NGO Bangladesh Rice Foundation.
Most Bangladeshis cannot afford to eat animal products, which have a naturally higher level of zinc, according to HarvestPlus, the Washington-based NGO overseeing the high-zinc rice project.
That leaves rice as their main source - though insufficient - of zinc.
Trained bio-fortification breeders at the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute are testing seeds selected from hundreds of thousands of rice strains chosen for their naturally high zinc content.
Scientists are then cross-breeding the zinc-rich rice with widely grown rice varieties to see what takes root in Bangladesh’s soil and climate.
“The very best lines are then tested at many different locations in Bangladesh on breeding stations and on-farm,” said HarvestPlus’s head of production development, Wolfgang Pfeiffer.
A small selection of top-performing seeds will be multiplied and released in 2013 “on a massive scale to farmers”, he said. The cost is still in question, but must be affordable enough for the poor, HarvestPlus said.
Getting farmers to agree to a new breed may be difficult said the NGO’s manager in Bangladesh, Rezaul Karim.
“Farmers are risk averse. However we are planning an educational campaign about the benefits of bio-fortified rice. If consumers are motivated, farmers will be motivated.”
The bio-fortified rice is expected to look and taste the same as non-fortified rice, which though comforting, may carry at least one risk noted Karim.
“It will be very difficult to distinguish the seeds [of different rice strains]. If [another] crop fails, this could lead to a bad reputation [for the zinc-rich hybrid strain].”
HarvestPlus is trying to develop high-zinc rice in other countries, as well as wheat, maize, cassava, beans and pearl millet said Pfeiffer.
Zinc and stunting
Zinc shortage is a “significant public health nutrition problem” for Bangladesh’s children under five years old, leading to a “pervasively high prevalence of stunting [low height- to-age ratio]”, said Tahmeed Ahmed, the head of nutrition and senior scientist at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh. (ICDDR-B).
In 2009, 43 percent of under-five children in Bangladesh had moderate or severe stunting, which is the most common measure of chronic malnutrition and the leading cause of preventable mental disability worldwide, according to World Health Organization.
In most cases of stunting and poor immune response, the absence of zinc is to blame; its absence also affects how the body processes other life-saving nutrients, according to HarvestPlus.
Seven out of 10 women in Bangladesh do not get enough zinc in their diets, according to preliminary studies by ICDDR-B.
Lack of zinc in pregnant women can boost the risk of pregnancy complications, including low birth weight babies or stillbirths, warned HarvestPlus.
A woman fetching water in Dhaka, Bangladesh
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=92132
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