Panel hossain wednesday

How Biofortification Fits Into Malnutrition Interventions in

Bangladesh

Mahabub Hossain

Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC)

Global Conference on Biofortification, Washinton DC,November 9-11, 2010

International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington DC and International Rice Research Institute Philippines

MHossainJan2007Rice Diversity

Bangladesh is a hotspot of micronutrient deficiency induced malnutrition

Low birth weight babies: 40% for boys and 42% for girls

Vitamin A deficiency: one percent for children, 2.4% for pregnantmothers and 2.7% for lactating women

Iodine deficiency: 43% for the entire population

Iron deficiency: 92% for 6-11month old babies; 68% for 6-59month old children; 46% for adult women

Zinc deficiency: 50% for the children and also for adultpopulation


The food basket is characterized by low diversity of diet (Average per capita food intake (gm/day)

Commodity

HIES, 2005 (N=7740) National Nutrition Survey, 1996 (N=975)

Rural Urban Rural UrbanRice 477 389

443 376Wheat 12 28Pulses 13 19 10 18Fish 39 50 30 32Eggs 4 8 6 8Meat 13 23 7 32Vegetables 221 228 126 126

Fruits 28 36 11 11

Source: HIES, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics 2005, and Institute of Nutrition and Food Science (1999).


Food consumption in Bangladesh:by poverty groups, 2000 (source: HIES 2000)

Poverty status

Weight (Percent)

Rice intake (gm/day)

Wheat intake (gm/day)

No. of days per week take nutrient rich food

Normal times

At distress

Normal times

At distress

Fish with meal

Meat/eggs with meal

Extreme poor 12 487 371 16 13 1.7 0.1

Poor 31 487 423 8 10 2.8 0.3

Non-poor 57 502 478 13 10 4.3 0.9

All cases 100 496 452 13 11 3.5 0.6


Fortification of food and supplementation with tablets target a fraction of population and often fails to reach the target

population

Wheat floor is fortified with iron for distribution to vulnerable groups, but the allocation is less that 400,000 tons compared to the amount of national consumption of cereals of 27.0 million tons

Vitamin A capsules are distributed to children and pregnant mothers, folic acid is distributed for iron supplementation, zinc tablets and iodized salts are available in the markets

But they reach a small fraction of the target population due to weak delivery system in public health institutions.

For sustainability of interventions constant efforts are needed putting pressure on limited health sector budget

The level of consumption of rice, the dominant food staple, is very high –500 kg per person per day for men, 400 kg for women and 100 kg for under five children

Biofortification of rice could be an effective and sustainable means for combating mineral and vitamin deficiency in diets


Can substantial rice consumers be targeted through bio-fortification of a few rice varieties?

A nation wide sample survey in 2005 noted that despite gradual erosion of bio-diversity with the diffusion of high yielding rice varieties farmers still grow a large number of varieties >Aman (monsoon rice) 515, Boro (dry season irrigated rice) 261,Aus (Pre monsoon rice) 261

But a few varieties account for a large proportion of rice area>Dry season: Brridhan 29, 37%; Brridhan 28, 24%>Wet season: BR11 35%, Swarna 16%

These mega varieties could be biofortified with iron, zinc and pro vitamin A at a relatively low cost


Consumers’ preference: Are they willing to pay higher price for nutritious rice?

People are curious to know that rice can contain ‘vitamins’

Consumers will purchase nutritious rice, different color no problem

The fortified rice should have good keeping quality so that the left-over from night cooking could be used as breakfast

Poor households are not willing to pay higher price for nutritional traits

‘Non-poor’ households are willing to pay 5-10 % higher price for nutritious rice


What traits do farmers want in a new variety?

Primary trait: High yield for more grains from limited farm size and low unit cost of production96%, of farmers reporting high yield as the most preferred trait

Secondary traits:Grain quality for premium price in the market with growing demand

of better quality rice from middle and upper middle classShorter Maturity for flexibility of growing additional crops from the

same piece of land during the year, and for fitting non-rice crops in the cropping pattern

For inducing farmers to adopt new varieties fortified minerals and vitamin should be in addition to the above traits


To what extent farmers keep their own rice production for self-consumption?

Small and marginal farmers who are either subsistence farmers or deficit farmers dominate the agrarian structure

75% Farms with less than one hectare size who has hardly any surplus to sell in the market

Only 4% of farms operate more than two hectares. They are the major source of marketed surplus for urban households

30% of the population live in urban areas- urbanization is growing very fast with a third of the urban population living in slums

A large proportion of rural households can be targeted for bio-fortified rice with production in own farms


Is rice over-milled such that micro-nutrients at the outer layer are not available to consumers?

Almost all rice farmers store paddy for 6 to 12 months, and get the paddy milled in local mills for household consumption when required

Widespread practice of parboiling during milling for binding of micronutrients >96% of households parboil paddy before milling>18% of households parboil twice before milling

However, urban consumers rural landless reached through markets may get less benefit because mills have grains over polished to get better price>21% of the mills polish rice for more than once - broken grains

and bran are used as poultry feed which fetches high price in the market

To be effective in reaching consumers vitamins and minerals have to be put into endosperm

THANK YOU

Panel hossain wednesday

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