PM 'dedicates' biofortified cereals to nation; his govt should also procure them preferentially

The Narendra Modi Cabinet, earlier this month, approved a Rs 17,000 crore outlay to supply, for four years, artificially fortified rice to those acutely deficient in micronutrients like iron.

It would have helped if a part of the allocation was set aside for the preferential procurement of biofortified rice. This would have given the biofortification programme a boost and addressed micronutrient deficiency in the households of smallholder farmers who grow cereals for their own consumption and sell the surplus.

This would also have been in sync with Prime Minister Modi’s bid to promote biofortified, high-yielding and climate-resilient crop varieties.

Biofortification for nutrition

The release of such varieties by sub-groups of the Central and State Seed Committees used to be a routine affair till 2020, when Modi started “dedicating” them to the nation ceremoniously.

Also read | Explainer: What is fortified rice and why is it mired in controversy?

This August, Modi dedicated 109 of them. So far, 87 open-pollinating varieties (whose seeds can be saved for sowing the next season) and hybrids of 17 food crops with higher-than-usual nutrition levels have been released, according to the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). Of these, 48 have enhanced levels of more than one micronutrient.

Biofortification is a way of raising the nutrition levels of cereals, pulses, oilseeds, fruits and vegetables through plant breeding techniques. Proteins, minerals, vitamins, amino acids and good fatty acids are some of the traits that are targeted for enhancement.

Another objective is the suppression of anti-nutrients, like erucic acid in mustard which causes fat deposits in arteries or glucosinolates that render mustard oil cake less palatable for chicken and pigs.

Rice fortification

Fortified rice is milled common rice blended with similar-looking rice kernels, which is ground rice spiked with iron, folic acid and Vitamin B12, and extruded under heat. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) permits 1 kg of fortified rice kernels (FRKs) to be blended with 50-200 kg of milled rice. There is no change in cooking procedure.

Also read: Fortified rice is nice, but the Centre’s plan to promote it is flawed

The efficacy of rice fortification has been questioned by two members of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, who said undernourishment is caused by lack of dietary diversity.

Experts from the National Institute of Nutrition, Hyderabad, have said that rice fortification should be a temporary measure and while supervised serving of fortified rice though school mid-day meals raised iron stores and reduced anaemia in students, malnutrition was mainly caused by inadequate food intake and poor dietary diversity.

Issues with biofortified varieties

Biofortification is a sustainable way of delivering micronutrients. Preferential procurement would incentivise their cultivation.

Currently, there is no incentive for the production of biofortified varieties, which, even if not lower yielding, entail additional costs on soil nutrients. Preferential procurement at higher than MSP would compensate for the “yield penalty,” if any, and the extra cost of production.

Indents (requests for procurement) for breeder seed placed on the Union Agriculture Ministry’s Seednet portal ahead of this year’s kharif or rainy season show poor demand for biofortified rice varieties.

Also read: No takers for fortified rice in Tamil Nadu?

Of 484 varieties indented for a total of nearly 3,300 quintal of breeder seed, only eight were biofortified, and the quantity indented was about 38 quintals, or slightly over one per cent of the total.

Breeder, foundation seeds

Breeder seeds are genetically pure and produced by or for the institution that bred them. From these, foundation seeds are produced and from them certified seeds for farmers to sow. The multiplication ratio varies from crop to crop.

For open pollinating paddy varieties, as per the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University portal, the ratio is 1:80, so 1 kg of breeder seed results in 6,400 kg of certified seed. For rice hybrids, the ratio is 1:100.

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Three of the eight biofortified rice varieties had protein content of 10 per cent or more, against 7-8 per cent in non-biofortified varieties. Six of them had 20-27 micrograms of zinc against the normal level of 12-16 micrograms. None of the indented varieties were high in iron. Their yields ranged from 4.5 tonnes per hectare (ha) to 5.8 tonnes.

Non-biofortified varieties

Among the varieties that got the highest breeder seed indents was MTU 1153 or Chandra, a non-biofortified variety released in 2015 with a yield of 7.5 tonnes per ha. Other non-biofortified varieties like MTU 7029, released in 1985 and MTU 1010, also called Cotton Dora Sannalu, released in 2000, had higher indents but their yields were lower – 4.5 tonnes in one case and 5 tonnes in the other.

None of the 11 rice varieties that Punjab Agriculture University (PAU) recommended for planting during this year’s kharif seasons were biofortified. They were of shorter duration, to give ample time for wheat planting without the fields having to be cleared of paddy straw and stubble by burning. They had high-yields of around seven tonnes per hectare and resistance to pests and diseases.

Biofortified cereals

The 37 popular varieties of the National Rice Research Institute (NRRI), Cuttack, were also not bio-fortified. They had yields of at least 3.5 tonnes per hectares, some going up to 7.75 tonnes. These were meant for upland, irrigated, dry season, shallow lowland, water-logged and coastal saline ecologies. They also included transplanted, direct seeded and aromatic rice varieties.

Also read: How biofortification can tackle undernourishment better

According to geneticist Deepak Pental, biofortified cereals are generally poor yielding. Many genes are involved in the production of zinc and iron. Improving the yield of high zinc or high iron rice or wheat takes many years of breeding.

Their uptake of minerals depends on availability in soil. If the soil is deficient, the zinc or iron content will be poor.

Different rice varieties

But the eight biofortified rice varieties for which breeder seed indents were placed, have high yields – most of them were above 5 tonnes per hectare. They do not match the yields of varieties recommended for Punjab, but are comparable to the popular rice varieties of NRRI.

DK Yadava, Assistant Deputy Director-General (Seeda) at ICAR, attributes the poor demand for biofortified rice varieties to diverse ecologies. Unlike wheat and bajra, consumer preference also depends on many attributes like taste, aroma, grain size, texture, colour and cooking quality.

In bajra or pearl millet, all the new releases are biofortified. Of 28 varieties and hybrids indented for sowing in this year’s monsoon (Kharif) season, 13 were biofortified. They accounted for 44 percent of the total pearl millet seed demand placed on government agencies. These comprised varieties and hybrids with iron up to 91 parts per million (ppm) and zinc up to 46 ppm. Their grain and dry fodder yields were high: up to 3.27 tonnes and 74 tonnes respectively.

Wheat farmers

Biofortificated varieties are also well accepted by wheat farmers. In the last rabi or winter season, indents for biofortified wheat seed amounted to 5,111 quintals or 37 per cent of the total. Of the 147 seed varieties for which orders were placed, 34 were biofortified, and of them four were developed at the Wheat and Barley Research Institute in Karnal (Haryana) accounted for 64 per cent of the indented biofortified seed. These four had output comparable to those of high yielding varieties, in addition to higher than benchmark protein content in some, or high levels of zinc or iron.

AK Singh, who was director of IARI till June, says with XRF (X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy) machines at the procurement centres, the government can buy cereals for distribution through ration shops or for special purposes as per their iron or zinc content, very much as mustard is bought as per oil content. The price paid should be higher than the MSP of conventional varieties. That will incentivise farmers to apply fertilisers containing iron and zinc for the plants to absorb.

Private companies can also create consumer demand through marketing and advertising, just as they have created a niche for Madhya Pradesh’s ‘sharbati atta’ made from wheat grown in Sehore district. They can then enter into contract farming arrangements with farmers.