HarvestPlus Biofortification
MLC VANGUARD | Created by HarvestPlus
3 billion people globally cannot afford a healthy diet, unable to access or afford nutrient dense foods in the current food system. HarvestPlus uses conventional breeding to enrich everyday food crops with vitamins and minerals (biofortification) to transform food systems to be resiliently nutritious.
49,000,000 Lives Impacted
Biofortified crop varieties, now reaching over 48 million people, improve health outcomes and livelihoods. The impacts of biofortified crops were tested through several peer-reviewed studies, which found that regular consumption improved nutritional status and health outcomes, including increased resilience of immune systems to viruses and diseases; reductions in illnesses, such as diarrhea and pneumonia; improvement in night vision; enhanced physical and cognitive performance in children and women; and improved work efficiency in adults. The micronutrient targets for breeding biofortified varieties of crops are set to meet the micronutrient requirements of those who need them the most – women, children and adolescent girls.
Biofortified varieties are nutritious, resilient, and high yielding, with positive livelihood impacts for value chain actors from small holder farmers to agriculture and nutrition entrepreneurs selling biofortified food products. The adoption of these crops is well documented (in both number of farmers and area planted, and yield and income increase overtime) as well as the cost-effectiveness, scalability, and sustainability of delivery models.
The Innovation
Over two billion people globally suffer from chronic micronutrient deficiency, leading to blindness, stunting, cognitive impairment, preventable disease and death, and intergenerational poverty. Especially in poor or rural households, the ideal diverse diets are out of reach, and families rely on inexpensive staple foods. With a breakthrough innovation by HarvestPlus, staple foods are enriched with vitamins and minerals through conventional plant breeding to provide a sustainable, farmer-controlled tool to fight malnutrition. Biofortified varieties are bred to meet farm household demands for yield under local conditions AND to provide over 50% of the daily requirement for vitamin A, iron and zinc for all household members who consume staple foods daily.
COVID-19 has disrupted supply chains and raised food prices, and climate change is leading to decreased yields and micronutrient contents in crops, and increased pest and disease incidence, with severe effects for smallholder famers. Biofortification is a critical intervention that could provide food systems with the resilience needed to ensure everyone has access to sufficient food and sufficient nutrition.
About Harvest Plus
HarvestPlus’ vision is a world free of hidden hunger—a lack of essential vitamins and minerals affecting 2 billion people globally. We believe that hidden hunger can be solved by actively adding micronutrients to the diets of those who are deficient. Our mission is to work with partners to tackle hidden hunger on a global scale by scaling biofortification. Together, we build resilient food systems, bridge the gap between agriculture and nutrition, and drive social change to ensure that communities and individuals have access to opportunity. Through our work, HarvestPlus, in conjunction the greater CGIAR system, also hopes to build up the agricultural research community at-large by producing greater impact data for a more robust evidence base.
Implemented in
Harvest Plus’ innovation has been implemented in:
19 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, South and South East Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean
