World Health Day is celebrated on April 7th, and this year’s theme is “Healthy beginnings, hopeful future.” According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the theme urges governments and the health community to ramp up efforts to end preventable maternal and newborn deaths and to prioritize women’s longer-term health and well-being.
While agencies responsible for human health will take necessary steps to enhance medical and health facilities, the scientific fraternity in agriculture and allied fields will play its part in ensuring better nutrition and promoting overall human health. Nutritional security remains a big challenge in view of the nutritional deficiencies found among a huge section of society, but the same can be tackled with committed scientific efforts and policy support in terms of the development of crop varieties rich in nutrients, especially micronutrients, and efficient distribution mechanisms.
Research has a great role in providing cheap and long-term solutions to existing challenges, and achieving future goals in agriculture includes nutritional security. Micronutrient malnutrition, often referred to as “hidden hunger,” has been and continues to be a major global health issue. According to WHO estimates, more than 2 billion people in the world today may be affected by micronutrient malnutrition. Global mortality of children due to iron, zinc, and vitamin A deficiencies is alarming, and paradoxically, the most affected populations exist in rural areas where food is produced.
Rice is the staple food for more than half of the world’s population and billions of the poor in the developing world. In India also, it is one of the most important staple foods and supplies a major caloric supplement to two-thirds of the population. Rice grain, as a whole edible part, roughly supplies 6.8 g of protein, 78.2 g of carbohydrates, and a small amount of fat (0.5 g) per 100 grams of rice. However, the milling and polishing process removes most of the essential micronutrients and vitamins, rendering it a nutritionally poor food.
To address the problem of these nutrient deficiencies, the greatest potential lies in the bio-fortification of this crop. Crop bio-fortification is a process of enhancing the nutritional quality of the edible parts of plants and can be achieved through two approaches, viz., the genetic approach (plant breeding) and the management approach. In the genetic approach, crossing between plants is done to achieve desirable target traits in terms of nutrient content in the edible parts of the plant. The management approach includes crop management practices like the application of fertilizers either in soil or through foliar application or a combination of the two. It also includes all other practices that improve the availability of nutrients to the plant and their ability to improve uptake and absorption of these nutrients.
This approach is equally important because if the soils are starved and critically deficient in micronutrients, the benefits of bio-fortified varieties cannot be fully achieved. Genetic bio-fortification improves the uptake, translocation, assimilation, and accumulation of micronutrients in certain edible parts of the plant. But when the particular micronutrient for which the crop is bio-fortified is critically deficient in soil, the desired results can’t be achieved, and thus both approaches need to go hand in hand.
Moreover, commercial cultivation of genetically bio-fortified crops may create more pressure on the soil micronutrient pool due to their increased ability to uptake target nutrients. This will be more important in those soils which are already deficient in these nutrients.
The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has recently released many rice varieties like DRR Dhan 45, DRR Dhan 48, DRR Dhan 49, DRR Dhan 63, Zinco Rice MS, CR Dhan 311, CR Dhan 315, and CR Dhan 324, which are rich in Zn. Zinc content in the polished grain of these varieties ranges from 20.1 ppm to 27.4 ppm compared to 12 to 16 ppm found in popular varieties. Besides, these varieties are also high-yielding for the recommended ecologies, thus guaranteeing both food and nutritional security.
CR Dhan 311 and 324 mentioned above are also rich in protein content. The protein content in these varieties is above 10% in comparison to 6–7% in common rice. Like Zn, iron (Fe) is also an essential micronutrient widely deficient among populations across the world. Women are particularly at risk of Fe deficiency owing to elevated requirements of Fe for childbearing and growth as well.
In rice, most of the Fe is accumulated in the rice bran (aleurone layer). But during the milling process, the rice bran is removed, and the endosperm with low Fe content is left for human consumption. In view of the above facts, varieties with high levels of Fe in the endosperm hold the key to improving Fe intake by millions worldwide for whom rice is the staple food.
Similarly, vitamin A deficiency is widespread globally, particularly in women and children. Some Asian and African countries are particularly considered as black spots with respect to vitamin A deficiency. Since rice is a staple food for millions in these countries, genotypes with high vitamin A content will prove immensely significant. Efforts have been made to produce β-carotene (precursor to Vitamin A) in rice endosperm for yielding rice with higher vitamin A levels. Such rice varieties are known as “Golden Rice.”
In the Ingo Potrykus-led project, daffodil and bacterium (Erwinia uredovora) genes were transferred into a rice variety, Taipei 309, which in turn is being explored as a donor for breeding varieties with high yield and β-carotene in the endosperm. Syngenta has developed some rice varieties known as Syngenta Golden Rice (SGR1 & SGR2). SGR1 trials in the USA reported 4–8 µg carotenoid per gram of rice endosperm.
In a nutshell, the development and popularization of bio-fortified varieties can prove to be an economically viable strategy to overcome the problem of hidden hunger and to ensure nutritional security alongside food security. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research in the main campus and also through its centers and other institutions is doing a commendable job to achieve these objectives.
ICAR, through its bio-fortification programme, is committed to striving hard for the better growth and development of the citizens of the nation. In this endeavor, the Mountain Research Center for Field Crops (MRCFC) – SKUAST-Kashmir has initiated a project entitled “Mining Genomic Loci Contributing for Quality Traits in Local Indigenous Rices of Kashmir: Towards Development of Nutritionally Improved Genetic Stocks” under JKDST&IC. Hopefully, the outcome of the project will facilitate the development of nutritionally rich varieties of rice with the potential to improve human nutrition and contribute to achieving nutritional security.
Dr Tasneem Mubarak is Chief Scientist, Agronomy, MRCFC-SKUAST, Kashmir
Dr N R Sofi is the Associate Director Research (MRCFC) – SKUAST-Kashmir
Tasneem Mubarak and N R Sofi
dr***************@**************ac.in