作者
A Ashok Kumar, SA Mehtre, Kotla Anuradha, Jayakumar Jaganathan, Hari Prasanna, Sunita Gorthy, SR Gadakh, U Chavan, HV Kalpande, VA Tonapi
发表日期
2018
页码范围
1-8
简介
Micronutrient malnutrition, particularly among women and children, is one of greatest global challenges of our times and the national Governments and international organizations are following various approaches to combat it. Biofortification –increasing the micronutrient density in edible plant parts by genetic means, is one of the cost-effective and sustainable methods to address the micronutrient malnutrition. Sorghum is one of the major staples globally and it meets more than 50% micronutrient requirements of low-income group populations in predominantly sorghum eating areas. We developed biofortified sorghums with elevated levels of grain Fe and Zn combined with higher grain yield possessing farmer-preferred grain and stover traits. The first biofortified sorghum cultivar ‘Parbhani Shakti’ was released in India in 2018, which, besides high Fe and Zn, has higher protein content and lower phytates content. An innovative ‘Seed Consortium’ was built to take this variety to the farmers in shortest possible time to benefit the farmers and consumers. Multi-stakeholder partnership was the key in this endeavour and Indian NARS, farmers, public sector seed organisations, media and Government played a key role along with ICRISAT.
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