Experts at a workshop have stressed expanding cultivation and consumption of easily affordable biofortified zinc rice to reduce zinc deficiency in malnourished populations and strengthen their immune systems.
They put emphasis on developing more biofortified crop varieties suitable to grow in the toughest geographical areas of the country involving trained farmers also considering consumer traits.
HarvestPlus Bangladesh organised the event on Policy and Program Inclusion of biofortified Crops in Northern Bangladesh under the Integrated Food System Approach to Build Nutrition Security Project with funding from the Government of Canada.
Rangpur Divisional Commissioner Abdul Wahhab Bhuiyan attended the workshop held at the RDRS conference room here on Tuesday as the chief guest.
Dr Khairul Bashar, country manager, HarvestPlus Bangladesh as the guest of honour attended the workshop presided over by Tauhidul Ikbal, additional director of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), Rangpur region.
Shah Alam, the additional director (Acting) of the DAE, Dinajpur region was present as a special guest.
Deputy Country Manager of HarvestPlus Bangladesh Dr MA Saleque welcomed the guests.
Forty officials and experts of different departments, officials of HarvestPlus Bangladesh, project implementing partner NGOs and journalists participated.
HarvestPlus improves nutrition and public health by developing and promoting biofortified food crops that are rich in vitamins and minerals and providing global leadership on biofortification evidence and technology.
HarvestPlus is part of the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH) and is based at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
The project aims to improve food and nutrition security while protecting livelihoods amid the Covid-19 pandemic by increasing access to biofortified seeds and markets for smallholder farmers and SMEs through value chains for better economic returns.
Project Coordinator of HarvestPlus Bangladesh Mozibar Rahman presented an essay on 'Biofortification: A sustainable way to build nutrition security'.
"The project aims to reach 405,067 households with biofortified zinc rice seed and grain, specially BRRI dhan74 and BRRI dhan84 to benefit 2,025,333 (50pc women) people in the Rangpur division of Bangladesh by June 2022," he said.
Dr Khairul Bashar said zinc deficiency in the human body causes stunting, lowers immunity and increases the risk of diarrheal diseases and respiratory infections.
The biofortified crops facilitated by HarvestPlus are developed through conventional plant breeding methods, thus biofortified crops in Bangladesh are not genetically modified.
"To boost biofortified crop adoption among producers and consumers, mainstreaming of biofortification is needed in crop development, seed multiplication and delivering food crops with public and private sectors," Dr Bashar said.
The inclusion of biofortified rice in social safety net programs will also create another market for this specialised crop to meet the nourishment of the poor.
The chief guest stressed innovating more varieties of biofortified crops for expanding cultivation, production and marketing to benefit both farmers and people on the way to build a healthier and developed Bangladesh by 2041 next.
Tauhidul Ikbal emphasised the extension of zinc rice in the Rangpur division and suggested for mainstreaming biofortified zinc rice in the government's procurement plan and contributing to reducing zinc deficiency in the malnourished population.
