Bio-fortification key to global food crisis?

NEW YORK: In the backdrop of current global food crisis, Bio-fortification, a fairly new technique to improve nutrition through conventional plant breeding, was extensively discussed at meeting of scientists organized by the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
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IAEA uses nuclear techniques to evaluate bio-availability and efficacy in humans, said Lena Davidsson, who heads the Agency's Nutritional and Health-related Environmental Studies Section.
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Unlike traditional means to add nutrients to food in the processing stages, bio-fortification seeks to do this while staple plants are being grown, and these new crops could reach those who lack access to centrally processed fortified foods, she said.
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With our bio-fortification strategy, scientists try to put more vitamins and minerals into the foods staples that the poor are already eating in large amounts, Davidsson added.
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IAEA has teamed up with the scientists in a four-year project in Asia and Latin America: HarvestPlus, a group of institutions working for better nutrition to poor, will develop bio-fortified foods, while IAEA will test the body's ability to use the nutrient-packed crops.
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Under this scheme, some women in Bangladesh have replaced the typical white-coloured sweet potato with a bio-fortified orange one that is higher in beta-carotene. A sophisticated stable isotope technique will measure their vitamin A levels to determine how the bio-fortified products could combat nutritional deficiencies.
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Compared to more traditional tests, stable isotope techniques allow more sensitivity and specificity in their measurements.