Harvestplus: State-of-Art and Program Strategic Priorities in Biofortified Crop Development and Delivery.

Plant breeding for micronutrient density (biofortification) gained legitimacy when micronutrient deficiencies were recognized as global public health challenge of the 21^st century. In response, HarvestPlus was established to add food nutritional quality to agricultural production research paradigms and reduce micronutrient malnutrition among poor at-risk populations by capitalizing on agricultural research as tool for public health interventions. HarvestPlus seeks to develop and disseminate more nutritious varieties of food staples high in iron, zinc, or provitamin A. Biofortified crops offer a cost-effective, sustainable and rural-based intervention that, by design, initially reaches these more remote populations, which comprise a majority of the undernourished in many countries. It then penetrates to urban populations as production surpluses are marketed. Thus, biofortification complements other nutrition interventions such as fortification and supplementation.

HarvestPlus’ applied and strategic research is driven by an impact/product pathway that integrates crop development, nutrition, seed production, capacity building, marketing, advocacy and monitoring/impact research in country specific crop delivery plans which span the entire value chain. As for novel traits, biofortified product concepts must consider factors associated with probability of success in achieving: i) technological goals with trait discovery and expression in adapted genotypes, ii) crop improvement goals to generate a biofortified germplasm product without compromising agronomic performance, nutrition, or end-use quality; and iii) commercial goals to guide the design and delivery of the technology. HarvestPlus has three project phases: i) discovery (2004-2008), ii) development (2009-2013), and iii) delivery (2014-2018).

State-of-art and program strategic priorities in phase III are presented and multidisciplinary themes are explained with an emphasis on product development and delivery.