Does biofortification work? Three critical questions must be answered:
1. Can breeding increase micronutrient content of food staples sufficiently to have measurable and significant impact on human nutritional status?
2. Will the extra nutrients bred into the food staples be bioavailable (able to be absorbed by the body) in sufficient amounts to improve micronutrient status?
3. Will farmers adopt biofortified crop varieties, and will poor malnourished people buy, grow, and eat biofortified foods in sufficient quantities to improve their nutritional status?
Impact Pathway
HarvestPlus works along an Impact Pathway for each biofortified crop, or product. This pathway has three main stages, each with specific steps developed by HarvestPlus that begins with identifying malnourished populations and ends with improving their nutrition through delivery of biofortified crop products.
Programs
HarvestPlus relies on a team of experts from many disciplines to investigate these fundamental questions. These disciplines include plant breeding, human nutrition, agricultural economics, marketing, social science, and communications. HarvestPlus activities are organized around five main disciplinary programs:
