Are there Cheaper or Easier Sustainable Strategies for Reducing Micronutrient Malnutrition?
A plant breeding strategy, if successful, will not eliminate the need for supplementation, fortification and dietary diversification programs in the future. Nevertheless, by significantly reducing the numbers of people requiring treatment, this strategy has the promise to significantly reduce the recurrent expenditures required for these higher-cost, short-run programs. Costs of plant breeding. To obtain a rough estimate of plant breeding costs, the example of the CGIAR Micronutrients Project may be used. This project is a multi-disciplinary effort among plant scientists, human nutritionists and social scientists. The general objective over five years is to assemble the package of tools that plant breeders will need to produce mineral- and vitamin-dense cultivars. The target crops are wheat, rice, maize, phaseolus beans and cassava. The target micronutrients being studied 2 When such mutants are used as animal feeds, this also avoids what has become a serious pollution problem: excreti
