Advances in plant sciences for nutritional security

Abstract

Malnutrition and hunger among the world population at alarming rates pose serious threat to global food security. Further, the FAO Hunger Report (2012) depicts that, about 12.5 per cent of the global population (one in eight people) is starving, excluding 100 million children under the age of five. Irrespective of the adults, about 2.5 million children die every year due to starvation and malnutrition which ultimately hinder human potential (FAO Hunger Report 2012). Since, plants are the primary producers in the food chain, they serve as versatile biochemical factories capable of producing almost complete complement of essential dietary micronutrients. However, the dietary micronutrients are unevenly disseminated among different plant parts. For instance, iron content in a rice leaf is as high as 100–200 ppm (parts per million), but very low in the polished rice grain (~3 ppm) (Mayer et al., 2008). Similarly, provitamin A carotenoids are present only in rice leaves but not in its edible part. Unfortunately, economically backward people rely predominantly on starchy staples such as rice, wheat, maize, or cassava, but these crops do not supplement the biochemical diversity needed for a healthy life which leads to micronutrient malnutrition (MNM). Plant science has a central role in addressing these issues of both hunger and malnutrition. Since, MNM affects more than half of the world population, biofortification offers an economical and sustainable approach of delivering micronutrients via micronutrient-dense crops to the human population. Hence, this book chapter summarizes the strategies of generating biofortified-crop plants along with the significant achievements reported in biofortification of major crop plants such as orange sweet potato, maize, cassava, rice, wheat and other crops like lentils, banana, cowpea, sorghum and potato.