The United Nations Millennium Development Goals provide a blueprint to meet the needs of the world’s poorest people. Find out how the HarvestPlus Biofortification strategy can contribute to the Millennium Development Goals.
| Goals and Indicators |
|
How Biofortification
Can Contribute
|
| Eradicate
extreme poverty and hunger |
|
|
- Proportion of population below $1 a day
- Poverty gap ratio (incidence x depth of
poverty)
- Share of poorest quintile in national consumption
- Prevalence of underweight in children (under
five years of age)
- Proportion of population below minimum level
of dietary energy consumption
|
|
Improved micronutrient
status has been shown to improve work productivity,
mental and psychomotor performance, and appetite,
and to promote faster growth. Biofortification
targets the rural poor, in particular, who consume
large amounts of food staples and little else. |
| Achieve
universal primary education |
|
|
- Net enrollment ratio in primary education
- Proportion of pupils starting grade 1 who
reach grade 5
- Literacy rate of 15-to-24-year-olds
|
|
Improved micronutrient
status has been shown to improve cognitive and
psychomotor abilities. Children who do well in
school are more likely to want to stay in school
and their parents are more likely to support their
education. |
| Reduce child
mortality |
|
|
- Under-five mortality rate
- Infant mortality rate
|
|
Improved micronutrient
status has been shown to reduce under-five mortality
and morbidity; infant mortality rates may be benefited
from improved micronutrient status of mothers
during pregnancy. |
| Improve
maternal health |
|
|
| |
|
Improved micronutrient
status has been shown to reduce mortality and
morbidity. |
| Combat HIV/AIDS,
malaria, and other diseases |
|
|
- HIV prevalence among 15- to 24-year-old pregnant
women
- Number of children orphaned by HIV/AIDS
- Prevalence and death rates associated with
malaria
- Prevalence and death rates associated with
tuberculosis.
|
|
The severity, mortality
from, and perhaps incidence of HIV-AIDS, malaria,
tuberculosis and other diseases are exacerbated
by poor micronutrient status. |
| Ensure environmental
sustainability |
|
|
- Change in land area covered by forest
- Proportion of population with access to secure
tenure [rural areas]
|
|
When topsoil dries,
roots in the dry soil zone (which are easiest
to fertilize) are largely deactivated and the
plant must rely on deep roots for further nutrition.
Roots of plant genotypes that are efficient in
mobilizing surrounding, external trace minerals,
are not only more disease resistant, but also
better able to penetrate deficient subsoils, and
so make use of the moisture and minerals contained
in subsoils. This reduces the
need for fertilizers and improves drought tolerance.
In addition, fewer herbicides and pesticides
would have to be used because micronutrient-efficient
genotypes should have greater resistance to plant
pathogens.
These characteristics benefit those whose soils
are deficient in trace minerals on rainfed land
and who are thus among the poorest farmers. |
