India’s new budget allocates money to nutrient-enriched crops

A recent article in SciDev.Net reported that India’s new budget would include $40 million USD to fund pilot projects to develop iron-rich pearl millet, protein-rich maize, and zinc-rich wheat crops. This addition would address the micronutrient crisis that has hit India, resulting in widespread malnutrition and stunting in children and anemia in women. The article quotes Howarth Boius, the director of HarvestPlus, who says that adding these biofortified seeds to the staple crops is easier than changing the food habits of the population. The director-general of the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR), Swapan Kumar Dutta, says that the next step is increasing the acceptance of biofortified crops among farmers and promoting India’s traditional crops that are rich in nutrients but are underutilized in comparison to wheat and rice.

Read the article here.