The potential of genetically modified food crops to improve human nutrition in developing countries 1

1. This essay is a modified version of Bouis et al. (2003). Permission granted by Elsevier Press is gratefully acknowledged.

Abstract

Because of poor dietary quality and consequent widespread micronutrient malnutrition in low income countries, children and their mothers, who have higher requirements for vitamins and minerals due to rapid growth and reproduction respectively, have higher mortality, become sick more often, have their cognitive abilities compromised for a lifetime, and are less productive members of the workforce. Their quality of life and aggregate economic growth are unnecessarily compromised. One way that biotechnology can help to improve the nutrition and health of consumers in developing countries is by increasing the vitamin and mineral content and their bioavailability in staple foods.

Notes

1. This essay is a modified version of Bouis et al. (2003). Permission granted by Elsevier Press is gratefully acknowledged.

2. When such mutants are used as animal feeds, this also avoids what has become a serious pollution problem – excretion of unutilised phytic acid.

3. Biofortification will not deplete soils of trace minerals. Sufficient trace minerals are present in most soils for thousands of crops. Some soils are labelled ‘trace mineral-deficient’ because the properties of these soils are such that the trace minerals are chemically bound and so unavailable to the plant. Roots of trace mineral-efficient lines release compounds into the soil, which chemically unbind the trace minerals in the soils and make them available to the plant. Thus, a strategy of breeding for trace mineral efficient lines makes use of an untapped and abundant resource. This is a very different situation from depletion of macronutrients in the soil, such as nitrogen and phosphorus (Graham and Welch, 1996).

4. There are agronomic benefits associated with high zinc seed density which are not discussed here (Graham et al., 2001). Possible higher crop yields are not counted as possible benefits nor benefits to better zinc nutrition. During germplasm screening, a high correlation between iron and zinc density in rice and wheat seeds has been found; therefore breeding for both characteristics simultaneously is feasible.