Agronomic biofortification of crops to fight hidden hunger in sub-Saharan Africa

By A. D. Valença, A. Bake, I. Brouwer, K. Giller. 2017

254 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Micronutrient deficiencies or ‘hidden hunger’ resulting from unbalanced diets based on starchy staple crops are prevalent among the population of sub-Saharan Africa. This review discusses the effectiveness of agronomic biofortification - the application of mineral micronutrient fertilizers to soils or plant leaves to increase micronutrient contents in edible parts of crops – and it's potential to fight hidden hunger. There is evidence that agronomic biofortification can increase yields and the nutritional quality of staple crops, but there is a lack of direct evidence that this leads to improved human health. Micronutrient fertilization is most effective in combination with NPK, organic fertilizers and improved crop varieties, highlighting the importance of integrated soil fertility management. Agronomic biofortification provides an immediate and effective route to enhancing micronutrient concentrations in edible crop products, although genetic biofortification may be more cost effective in the long run.

Subfields: Plant Science, Soil Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/eeeb8fc2252bc233724609ca3409ce86ed4c060e

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Citations in the corpus

Zinc nutrition in wheat-based cropping systems (2017, background): “…involves a fertilizer strategy; it is a rapid solution for reducing Zn deficiency and increasing grain Zn concentration (Cakmak 2008), and it is most effective when Zn fertilizers are applied in combination with nitrogen, organic fertilizers and better crop cultivars (de Valença et al. 2017).”
Zinc biofortification in rice: leveraging agriculture to moderate hidden hunger in developing countries (2018, background): “…may include; provision of superior cereal varieties, addition of enhancers of Zn absorption, development of customized milling practices, soaking to reduce phytic acid content, fermentation to increase microbial phytase activity and biofortification of crops with Zn (De Valença et al. 2017).”