If you had 75 billion dollars to improve the world, how would you best spend it? “Reducing micronutrient malnutrition” was the clear answer given by a panel of distinguished economists that met to ponder global challenges at Copenhagen Consensus 2008. Also knows as hidden hunger, micronutrient malnutrition is caused by a lack of vitamins and minerals in the diet. It can leave children blind, lower their IQ several points, and make them targets for an onslaught of illnesses that can linger through adulthood, and to an early grave. It prevents people too sick to work from climbing out of poverty and lowers a country’s productivity.

The panel selected biofortification, the breeding of food crops with higher nutritional value, as one of its top five solutions to global challenges. HarvestPlus—which coined the term “biofortification”—is an international alliance that began breeding biofortified rice, maize and other staple food crops consumed by the poor, in 2004, and expects to release biofortified crops within a few years.

“The panel recognized that the potential of a relatively small dollar investment to improve the nutrition of hundreds of millions of poor people, through biofortification, is enormous,” says Dr. Howarth Bouis, Director of HarvestPlus.

“As food prices continue to rise, and people are forced to reduce their consumption of more nutritious foods, such as animal products and leafy vegetables, micronutrient malnutrition will increase,” he cautioned. “Biofortification will therefore become all the more important as a strategy to improve nutrition and health.”

For more information, or to arrange an interview with Dr. Howarth Bouis, please contact Yassir Islam at 202-862-5602 or y.islam@cgiar.org

Copenhagen Consensus 2008
View the Challenge Paper on Hunger and Malnutrition
Results: (PDF 186K) | Press Release: (PDF 77K)

Rising Food Prices means Fewer Minerals and Vitamins for the Poor
Dr. Howarth Bouis shares his perspectives on how rising food prices could affect micronutrient status of the poor.
(PDF 331K)