Development and Uses of Biofortified Agricultural Products PDF

Foreword

Malnutrition is by far the leading cause of death worldwide. Alarmingly, it results in about 30 million deaths a year as a result of overt nutrient deficiencies as well as chronic diseases (e.g., heart disease, cancer, strokes, and diabetes) associated with inappropriate diets and imbalances in nutrient intake. Incredibly, over three billion people (nearly half the world's population) are afflicted with deficiencies of one or more essential trace elements and vitamins resulting in serious consequences for human health, productivity, happiness, and national development. Until recently, primary interventions to address this global health crisis include dietary micronutrient supplements and food fortification programs. Unfortunately, these types of programs do not reach many of those afflicted (especially resource-poor rural families in developing nations), and in many nations they have not proven to be sustainable. These types of approaches treat the symptoms of malnutrition but do nothing to address the primary causes. The underlying factors responsible for malnutrition are rooted in dysfunctional food systems dependent on agricultural systems that cannot provide all the essential nutrients and health-promoting factors in needed amounts continuously during all seasons. Because agriculture is the primary supplier of all nutrients and health-promoting factors consumed by people, it is logical to suspect that agricultural policies and farming systems are part of the root causes of malnutrition and dietrelated diseases. Moreover, the agricultural sector has never had an explicit goal of improving human health, and the nutrition and health communities have never used agriculture as a primary tool to fight malnutrition and diet-related diseases.

Health problems associated with the uneven distribution of micronutrients in the soil and their less-than-efficient uptake by some crop cultivars have become major public health issues in many developing countries. In particular, the urgent needs to improve the bioavailability of essential trace elements (e.g., iron, selenium, zinc, and iodine) and recognize the importance of plant and soil nutrition are conjunctly vitally influential in preserving and improving food quality and, ultimately, human health. To realize these objectives, new strategies, including agronomic and soil management practices, breeding, genetic and molecular insight, and their impact on influencing trace element uptake, accumulation, and bioavailability, have been developed and proposed for producing biofortified agricultural products.

Biofortification (i.e., generating plants that fortify themselves with nutrients and other health promoting factors during their growth) is the first agricultural tool to be embraced by both the agricultural and the nutrition communities to combat malnutrition. Originally, biofortification focused on breeding major staple food crops that would produce edible products enriched in bioavailable amounts of iron, zinc, and provitamin A carotenoids. The concept of biofortification has now expanded to include using soil amendment, fertilizer, and cropping system strategies to improve the nutrient output of farming systems and an ever-widening list of nutritional factors to biofortification in agricultural production. Increasing the output of bioavailable essential trace elements in food crops through adopting agricultural practices that are designed to meet human needs can be accomplished from "off the shelf" technologies, including choice of cropping systems, agronomic practices, and variety selection, as well as through the use of modern genetic engineering technologies. The connection between agriculture and human health must be established if we are to find sustainable solutions to trace-element deficiencies and associated diet-related chronic diseases afflicting the lives and health of massive numbers of people, and the development potential for numerous nations globally. As the world population grows and the demand for food increases, it will become imperative that we perform the research needed to design agricultural systems that not only provide enough food to meet energy needs but also provide healthy foods to prevent nutrient deficiencies and the chronic diseases associated with inappropriate diets and low quality food products. To achieve this goal scientists should have a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms, such as the interactions between agricultural practices, gut microorganisms, and nutrient bioavailability; the processes in the rhizosphere and the availability of essential trace elements to food crops; and effects of soil amendments, organic matter, and farming practices (e.g., cropping systems, tillage, irrigation, etc.) on trace element and vitamin accumulation in edible plant products. The genetic mechanisms that control the accumulation, translocation, and transformation of trace elements in edible plant products need further exploration.

The need to critically analyze and comprehensively synthesize the ever-mounting body of new information on biofortification from a worldwide perspective provided the impetus for the development of this book. It is a compilation of scientific articles provided by the eminent scientists from around the world who are actively engaged in vital aspects of enhancing nutritional quality of food products from the soil up. Some of those international experts have presented at the special symposium entitled "Development and Uses of Biofortified Agricultural Products," as part of the 9th International Conference on the Biogeochemistry of Trace Elements that was held on July 16–17, 2007 in Beijing. This book presents a myriad of research focused on how best to biofortify food crops. The novel research endeavors presented will contribute to the important creation of biofortified agricultural products, and provide insightful opportunities to further our worldwide understanding of nutritionally important trace elements in the context of biochemistry, food chain transfer, and health-related issues. Indeed, an agricultural system that cannot sustain the societies it supports will not be, in itself, sustainable.