Howarth Bouis is the founding director of HarvestPlus. He was recently recognised as one of the winners of the 2016 World Food Prize Laureates for his contributions to the development, research and promotion of biofortification as a strategy to alleviate micronutrient malnutrition in developing countries. In this interview with Nkechi Isaac, he talks about his work in Nigeria and how staple foods can be improved for better nutrition.You have been recognised for your role in humanitarian activities, can you talk a little more about your project'Well were using conventional plant breeding to breed more minerals and vitamins into the staple food crops and were doing that because first of all poor people cannot afford to buy fruits, vegetables, animal products nearly as much as they want to buy, they just dont have the income. Those are the foods that are rich in minerals and vitamins and the prices of those foods have been going up at least for the last 40 years around the world. So, its very difficult for them to get these minerals and vitamins, so the price of vitamin A, iron, zinc has been going up. If we can breed these into staple foods which theyre already eating in large quantities essentially the consumers get them for free when they buy; like if they buy an orange maize they get the vitamin A because it costs the same for the white maize, so in essence, they get the vitamin A for free for their families.Now you have to spend money for the agricultural research to develop an orange maize, it takes 10 years to do the research, it takes many scientists. So, its a public investment but now the crop is available and it will help poor people.I learnt youre also working on cassava. I want to find out what inspired you to go into the research on the improvement of the nutritional value of maize and cassava'Well of course people want to do something that will make a difference in the world to help people. When I was 40 years old I thought this might be a good idea but I didnt know if it was possible to implement it. I was lucky to have a grant where I could spend my time going around, investigating the feasibility of it and I developed passion for the idea and I met some people here at Cornell that convinced me that it was possible and so I liked the idea so much that I spent the last 23 years trying to make it happen.Now apart from maize and cassava are there other crops you are working on improving their nutritional quality'In Africa there is also the high iron beans, theres also the orange sweet potato, were working on sorghum that is high on iron and zinc, high iron pro-millet is in India, now were trying to also introduce that to Africa; were also doing a little bit of work on cowpea and lentils; there are orange bananas and plantains high on Vitamin A.You mentioned that you have some projects in Africa, Ill like to find out if youre working in collaboration with research institutes in the countries youre working in, for instance are you working with any research institute in Nigeria'Yes, were working on the cassava in Nigeria with the National Root Crops Research Institute. Were also working with another research institute on maize.Most children in developing countries like Nigeria have the challenge of malnutrition, how do you think this can be addressed'Well the ultimate goal is that people will be able to eat very nutritious and high quality diet. So, like the people here in the United States their incomes are high enough and the food prices are low enough, if they have the right nutritional knowledge they can pretty much get all the foods they need. Eventually the same thing will happen to Nigeria as their incomes go up but in the meantime something needs to be done to keep the prices of vegetables and food and animal products, cowpeas, lentils, those prices are rising so something needs to be done to improve the supply and productivity of non-staple foods. Thats an important thing that the government can do, then of course I think that all the food staples should be biofortified so were working on high iron improved millet and thats happening in the northern part of Nigeria. Weve got the maize that is more in the middle part of Nigeria and then we have the cassava which is eaten in the south.What exactly is biofortification, what does the term mean'Biofortification is the process of increasing the density of vitamins and minerals in a crop, through plant breeding or agronomic practices, so that when consumed regularly it will generate measurable improvement in vitamin and mineral nutritional status.What is the acceptance rate of these new improved products because the colour is not the known conventional ones. I know a lot of people currently have reservations about genetically modified crops. Has the company come under any form of attack because the crops look different'Well when you introduce the crops you have to go to the local officials to introduce the crop first. In the case of Nigeria sometimes you go to the chiefs because people trust what they say and so you explain why it is yellow or orange, you explain the strategy. They are smart and so they understand and so theyll now be the people to explain the technology to the people. The Nigerian movie industry is very large, so we also explored that platform. Some movie actors and producers are helping us with the advocacy. Then we had some things on the television and radio to inform people about it.The quickest way to get people to buy into any project is to highlight its immediate benefits to the society. So, what are biofortified crops bringing to the table, how will they benefit Nigerians'Well, theres a problem of Vitamin A deficiency and so the families that eat the biofortified maize will be protected from this deficiency. When youre Vitamin A deficient, your immune system is not strong and you can get seriously sick when this happens it can lead to death, and in cases where it doesnt lead to death still somebody has to take care of the child, youll expend money on such challenges but if you eat Vitamin A as often then you save parents the trouble and the money of trying to treat the illness. In cases where the Vitamin A deficiency is very serious in children they get night blindness and once it gets that serious they are at risk to go blind and can die from such illness.
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