Transforming Nigerian Food Systems Through Their Backbones: Lessons From a Decade of Staple Crop Biofortification Programing.

This article presents the evolution of the biofortification program in Nigeria over the last decade and the role of interdisciplinary research in informing cost-effective, efficient, and inclusive development; implementation; and scaling of this program. Launched in 2011 to improve Nigeria's food systems to deliver accessible and affordable nutrients through commonly consumed staples, the Nigeria biofortification program was implemented through an effective partnership between the CGIAR and public, private, and civil society sectors at federal, state, and local levels. By the end of 2021, several biofortified varieties of Nigeria's 2 main staples, namely cassava and maize, were officially released for production by smallholders, with several biofortified varieties of other key staples (including pearl millet, rice, and sorghum) either under testing or in the release pipeline. In 2021, the program was estimated to benefit 13 million Nigerians consuming biofortified cassava and maize varieties. The evidence on the nutritional impact, consumer and farmer acceptance, and cost-effective scalability of biofortified crops documented by the program resulted in the integration of biofortified crops in several key national public policies and social protection programs; private seed and food company products/investments, as well as in humanitarian aid.

The global regulatory framework for the commercialization of nutrient enriched biofortified foods.

Nutrient enriched crops (NECs) were developed through biofortification as a tool to reach the world's most vulnerable. The delivery model developed by HarvestPlus for the scaling of NECs relies on commercial demand from food businesses and consumers, coupled with the ability to promote and market foods that comply with legislation. This review of standards, regulations, and laws across the value chain in 20 countries demonstrates that existing provisions for food labeling are sufficient to carry out sales and marketing of foods made from conventionally bred NECs. The term biofortification is not necessary to create demand and, potentially, is counterproductive. Promoting the natural source of vitamins and minerals and relevant nutrition claims is the most effective and simple way to signpost healthier products to consumers. Until 2021, it was not possible to distinguish NECs at the grain level from the market standard. The development of a globally relevant Publicly Available Specification allows traders to demand grains that offer a substantial increase in zinc, iron, or vitamin A. Addressing this gap at the grain level ensures that standards and regulations are available end-to-end in the food supply chain providing the enabling environment for the rapid scale of NECs.

Multiplying the efficiency and impact of biofortification through metabolic engineering.

Ending all forms of hunger by 2030, as set forward in the UN-Sustainable Development Goal 2 (UN-SDG2), is a daunting but essential task, given the limited timeline ahead and the negative global health and socio-economic impact of hunger. Malnutrition or hidden hunger due to micronutrient deficiencies affects about one third of the world population and severely jeopardizes economic development. Staple crop biofortification through gene stacking, using a rational combination of conventional breeding and metabolic engineering strategies, should enable a leap forward within the coming decade. A number of specific actions and policy interventions are proposed to reach this goal.

"Singing in the Tube"--audiovisual assay of plant oil repellent activity against mosquitoes (Culex pipiens).

Plant essential oils have been suggested as a promising alternative to the established mosquito repellent DEET (N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide). Searching for an assay with generally available equipment, we designed a new audiovisual assay of repellent activity against mosquitoes "Singing in the Tube," testing single mosquitoes in Drosophila cultivation tubes. Statistics with regression analysis should compensate for limitations of simple hardware. The assay was established with female Culex pipiens mosquitoes in 60 experiments, 120-h audio recording, and 2580 estimations of the distance between mosquito sitting position and the chemical. Correlations between parameters of sitting position, flight activity pattern, and flight tone spectrum were analyzed. Regression analysis of psycho-acoustic data of audio files (dB[A]) used a squared and modified sinus function determining wing beat frequency WBF ± SD (357 ± 47 Hz). Application of logistic regression defined the repelling velocity constant. The repelling velocity constant showed a decreasing order of efficiency of plant essential oils: rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis), eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globulus), lavender (Lavandula angustifolia), citronella (Cymbopogon nardus), tea tree (Melaleuca alternifolia), clove (Syzygium aromaticum), lemon (Citrus limon), patchouli (Pogostemon cablin), DEET, cedar wood (Cedrus atlantica). In conclusion, we suggest (1) disease vector control (e.g., impregnation of bed nets) by eight plant essential oils with repelling velocity superior to DEET, (2) simple mosquito repellency testing in Drosophila cultivation tubes, (3) automated approaches and room surveillance by generally available audio equipment (dB[A]: ISO standard 226), and (4) quantification of repellent activity by parameters of the audiovisual assay defined by correlation and regression analyses.

Biofortification: a new tool to reduce micronutrient malnutrition.

BACKGROUND: The density of minerals and vitamins in food staples eaten widely by the poor may be increased either through conventional plant breeding or through the use of transgenic techniques, a process known as biofortification. OBJECTIVE: HarvestPlus seeks to develop and distribute varieties of food staples (rice, wheat, maize, cassava, pearl millet, beans, and sweet potato) that are high in iron, zinc, and provitamin A through an interdisciplinary, global alliance of scientific institutions and implementing agencies in developing and developed countries. METHODS: In broad terms, three things must happen for biofortification to be successful. First, the breeding must be successful--high nutrient density must be combined with high yields and high profitability. Second, efficacy must be demonstrated--the micronutrient status of human subjects must be shown to improve when they are consuming the biofortified varieties as normally eaten. Thus, sufficient nutrients must be retained in processing and cooking and these nutrients must be sufficiently bioavailable. Third, the biofortified crops must be adopted by farmers and consumed by those suffering from micronutrient malnutrition in significant numbers. RESULTS: Biofortified crops offer a rural-based intervention that, by design, initially reaches these more remote populations, which comprise a majority of the undernourished in many countries, and then penetrates to urban populations as production surpluses are marketed. In this way, biofortification complements fortification and supplementation programs, which work best in centralized urban areas and then reach into rural areas with good infrastructure. CONCLUSIONS: Initial investments in agricultural research at a central location can generate high recurrent benefits at low cost as adapted, biofortified varieties become available in country after country across time at low recurrent costs.

The quantity of zinc absorbed from wheat in adult women is enhanced by biofortification.

Biofortification of crops that provide major food staples to large, poor rural populations offers an appealing strategy for diminishing public health problems attributable to micronutrient deficiencies. The objective of this first-stage human study was to determine the increase in quantity of zinc (Zn) absorbed achieved by biofortifying wheat with Zn. Secondary objectives included evaluating the magnitude of the measured increases in Zn absorption as a function of dietary Zn and phytate. The biofortified and control wheats were extracted at high (95%) and moderate (80%) levels and Zn and phytate concentrations measured. Adult women with habitual diets high in phytate consumed 300 g of 95 or 80% extracted wheat as tortillas for 2 consecutive days using either biofortified (41 mg Zn/g) or control (24 mg Zn/g) wheat. All meals for the 2-d experiment were extrinsically labeled with Zn stable isotopes and fractional absorption of Zn determined by a dual isotope tracer ratio technique. Zn intake from the biofortified wheat diet was 5.7 mg/d (72%) higher at 95% extraction (P < 0.001) and 2.7 mg/d (68%) higher at 80% extraction compared with the corresponding control wheat (P = 0.007). Zn absorption from biofortified wheat meals was (mean +/- SD) 2.1 +/- 0.7 and 2.0 +/- 0.4 mg/d for 95 and 80% extraction, respectively, both of which were 0.5 mg/d higher than for the corresponding control wheat (P < 0.05). Results were consistent with those predicted by a trivariate model of Zn absorption as a function of dietary Zn and phytate. Potentially valuable increases in Zn absorption can be achieved from biofortification of wheat with Zn.

Biofortified crops to alleviate micronutrient malnutrition.

Micronutrient malnutrition affects more than half of the world population, particularly in developing countries. Concerted international and national fortification and supplementation efforts to curb the scourge of micronutrient malnutrition are showing a positive impact, alas without reaching the goals set by international organizations. Biofortification, the delivery of micronutrients via micronutrient-dense crops, offers a cost-effective and sustainable approach, complementing these efforts by reaching rural populations. Bioavailable micronutrients in the edible parts of staple crops at concentrations high enough to impact on human health can be obtained through breeding, provided that sufficient genetic variation for a given trait exists, or through transgenic approaches. Research and breeding programs are underway to enrich the major food staples in developing countries with the most important micronutrients: iron, provitamin A, zinc and folate.

Biofortification of staple food crops.

Deficiencies of vitamin A, iron, and zinc affect over one-half of the world's population. Progress has been made to control micronutrient deficiencies through supplementation and food fortification, but new approaches are needed, especially to reach the rural poor. Biofortification (enriching the nutrition contribution of staple crops through plant breeding) is one option. Scientific evidence shows this is technically feasible without compromising agronomic productivity. Predictive cost-benefit analyses also support biofortification as being important in the armamentarium for controlling micronutrient deficiencies. The challenge is to get producers and consumers to accept biofortified crops and increase their intake of the target nutrients. With the advent of good seed systems, the development of markets and products, and demand creation, this can be achieved.

CCall--healthy and successful work in call centres.

Call centre workplaces are in many ways a challenge to occupational health and safety. The occupation itself can be described as an IT information technology-supported, communication-intensive form of work with often unusual working hours and a high rate of part-time employment. Data on the employee turnover as well as absenteeism related to occupational disability is quite contradictory. Occupational safety and its proponents still have to find new ways into the corporate structures and cultures of this relatively new and rapidly growing branch of industry. In a 2-year research and development project, using a holistic approach and under consideration of all the relevant disciplines, call centre workplaces were studied, and organisational measures were developed and field tested by putting them into practice. Practical help was developed for a sustainable strategy for successful and healthy work in call centres.

Cloning and detection of metallothionein mRNA by RT-PCR in mangrove oysters (Crassostrea rhizophorae).

A semi-quantitative RT-PCR protocol was developed to directly evaluate metallothionein (MT) mRNA expression in different tissues of mangrove oysters (Crassostrea rhizophorae), using beta-Actin (ACT) as a normalizing gene. Clones with high degree of identity from partial coding sequences were obtained for both MT and ACT. Although not statistically significant, high relative accumulation of MT mRNA was observed in the digestive gland (DGG), but not in the gills, from samples collected from both control and contaminated sites. Nevertheless, MT expression was not comparable to the high levels of metal in the contaminated oysters. Results indicate that the variation in relative MT mRNA levels from different samples of the same site could be due to multiple gene copies or different MT isoform induction.

Establishment and analytical quality control of laboratories for Hg determination in biological and geological samples in the Amazon, Brazil

During the past 20 years significant amounts of HG have been released in the Amazonian environment due to goldmining activities. Several Brazilian and foreign research groups have been studying the region, always facing difficulties regarding preservation and transfer of the collected samples from the field to the analytical laboratories. Aiming to solve these problems two high quality Hg analytical laboratories were established in the region. One is located at Fundação Esperança (FE, Santarém, PA), a medical assitance foundation and the other at the Universidade Federal de Rondônia (UNIR), Porto Velho, RO. Their main equipament is: Atomic absorption spectrophotometers for Hg analysis (Klow Injection Mercury System-FIAS 400 with automatic samples-AS90-Perkin Elmer) and a microwave oven digestion system (MDS-2000-CEM). Technicians and researchers were trained in several aspects like environmental and human sampling, digestion methods and Hg analysis for biotic and abiotic materials. This training as well as the installation of the mentioned laboratories were the responsibility of the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). Intercalibration exercices were performed between several laboratories: Environmental Medicine of Odense University (Denmark), Centre de Toxicologie du Québec, Canada and Occupational Health Sciences (Health-Canada). In the last 18 months the FE laboratory joined the Hg urine analysis intercalibration program of the Laboratory of the Centre of Toxicology in Québec, Canada, reaching accurate results. To date both Amazonian laboratories are able to analyze several different materials: Sediment, soil, fish, urine, hair and blood. The FE laboratory is becoming more specialized in human samples such as urine, blood and hair, wile UNIR laboratory deals with environmental samples such as fish, sediment and soil.