Economics of enhanced micronutrient density in food staples

The combining of benefits for human nutrition and agricultural productivity , resulting from breeding staple food crops which are more efficient in the micronutrient metal uptake from the soil, and which accumulate more micron utrients into their seeds, results in extremely high ex ante estimates of b enefit/costs ratios for investments in agricultural research in this area. This finding derives from the confluence of several complementary factors: Rates of micronutrient malnutrition are high in developing countries, as ar e the consequent costs to human welfare and economic productivity. Because staple foods are eaten in large quantities every day by the malnour ished poor, delivery of enriched staple feuds (fortified by the plants them selves during growth) can rely on existing consumer behavior. A significant percentage of the soils in which these staple foods are grown are 'deficient' in these micronutrient metals, which has kept crop yields low. In general, these soils in fact contain relatively high total amounts of micronutrient metals. However, because of binding to soil constituents, these nutrients have poor soil availability to staple crop varieties that a re currently available to farmers. Adoption and spread of nutritionally-improved varieties by farmers can rely on profit incentives, either because of agronomic advantages on trace mine ral-deficient soils or incorporation of nutritional improvements in the mos t productive varieties being released by agricultural research stations. Benefits to relatively small investments in agricultural research may be di sseminated widely, potentially accruing to hundreds of millions of people a nd millions of hectares of cropland. Benefits from breeding advances, derived from initial, fixed costs, typical ly do not involve high recurring costs, and thus tend to be highly sustaina ble as long as an effective domestic agricultural research infrastructure i s maintained. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.