1. How Biofortification Fits Into
Malnutrition Interventions in
Bangladesh
Mahabub Hossain
Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee
(BRAC)
Global Conference on Biofortification, Washinton DC,
November 9-11, 2010
International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington DC
and International Rice Research Institute Philippines

2. MHossain
Jan2007
Rice Diversity
Bangladesh is a hotspot of micronutrient
deficiency induced malnutrition
Low birth weight babies: 40% for boys and 42% for girls
Vitamin A deficiency: one percent for children, 2.4% for pregnant
mothers and 2.7% for lactating women
Iodine deficiency: 43% for the entire population
Iron deficiency: 92% for 6-11month old babies; 68% for 6-59
month old children; 46% for adult women
Zinc deficiency: 50% for the children and also for adult
population

3. MHossain
Jan2007
Rice Diversity
The food basket is characterized by low diversity of
diet (Average per capita food intake (gm/day)
Commodity
HIES, 2005 (N=7740) National Nutrition
Survey, 1996 (N=975)
Rural Urban Rural Urban
Rice 477 389
443 376
Wheat 12 28
Pulses 13 19 10 18
Fish 39 50 30 32
Eggs 4 8 6 8
Meat 13 23 7 32
Vegetables 221 228 126 126
Fruits 28 36 11 11
Source: HIES, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics 2005, and Institute of Nutrition and Food Science (1999).

4. MHossain
Jan2007
Rice Diversity
Food consumption in Bangladesh:
by poverty groups, 2000 (source: HIES 2000)
Poverty
status
Weight
(Percent)
Rice intake
(gm/day)
Wheat intake
(gm/day)
No. of days per
week take
nutrient
rich food
Normal
times
At
distress
Normal
times
At
distress
Fish
with
meal
Meat/
eggs
with
meal
Extreme
poor
12 487 371 16 13 1.7 0.1
Poor 31 487 423 8 10 2.8 0.3
Non-poor 57 502 478 13 10 4.3 0.9
All cases 100 496 452 13 11 3.5 0.6

5. MHossain
Jan2007
Rice Diversity
Fortification of food and supplementation with tablets target
a fraction of population and often fails to reach the target
population
 Wheat floor is fortified with iron for distribution to vulnerable groups, but
the allocation is less that 400,000 tons compared to the amount of
national consumption of cereals of 27.0 million tons
 Vitamin A capsules are distributed to children and pregnant mothers,
folic acid is distributed for iron supplementation, zinc tablets and iodized
salts are available in the markets
 But they reach a small fraction of the target population due to weak
delivery system in public health institutions.
 For sustainability of interventions constant efforts are needed putting
pressure on limited health sector budget
 The level of consumption of rice, the dominant food staple, is very high –
500 kg per person per day for men, 400 kg for women and 100 kg for
under five children
Biofortification of rice could be an effective and
sustainable means for combating mineral and vitamin
deficiency in diets

6. MHossain
Jan2007
Rice Diversity
Can substantial rice consumers be targeted through bio-
fortification of a few rice varieties?
 A nation wide sample survey in 2005 noted that despite gradual
erosion of bio-diversity with the diffusion of high yielding rice
varieties farmers still grow a large number of varieties
>Aman (monsoon rice) 515, Boro (dry season irrigated rice) 261,
Aus (Pre monsoon rice) 261
 But a few varieties account for a large proportion of rice area
>Dry season: Brridhan 29, 37%; Brridhan 28, 24%
>Wet season: BR11 35%, Swarna 16%
These mega varieties could be biofortified with iron, zinc and pro
vitamin A at a relatively low cost

7. MHossain
Jan2007
Rice Diversity
Consumers’ preference: Are they willing to
pay higher price for nutritious rice?
 People are curious to know that rice can contain ‘vitamins’
 Consumers will purchase nutritious rice, different color no
problem
 The fortified rice should have good keeping quality so that the
left-over from night cooking could be used as breakfast
 Poor households are not willing to pay higher price for nutritional
traits
 ‘Non-poor’ households are willing to pay 5-10 % higher price for
nutritious rice

8. MHossain
Jan2007
Rice Diversity
What traits do farmers want in a new variety?
Primary trait: High yield for more grains from limited farm size and
low unit cost of production
96%, of farmers reporting high yield as the most preferred trait
Secondary traits:
Grain quality for premium price in the market with growing demand
of better quality rice from middle and upper middle class
Shorter Maturity for flexibility of growing additional crops from the
same piece of land during the year, and for fitting non-rice
crops in the cropping pattern
For inducing farmers to adopt new varieties fortified minerals
and vitamin should be in addition to the above traits

9. MHossain
Jan2007
Rice Diversity
To what extent farmers keep their own rice
production for self-consumption?
 Small and marginal farmers who are either subsistence farmers or deficit
farmers dominate the agrarian structure
 75% Farms with less than one hectare size who has hardly any surplus to
sell in the market
 Only 4% of farms operate more than two hectares. They are the major
source of marketed surplus for urban households
 30% of the population live in urban areas- urbanization is growing very
fast with a third of the urban population living in slums
A large proportion of rural households can be targeted for bio-fortified
rice with production in own farms

10. MHossain
Jan2007
Rice Diversity
Is rice over-milled such that micro-nutrients at the
outer layer are not available to consumers?
 Almost all rice farmers store paddy for 6 to 12 months, and get
the paddy milled in local mills for household consumption when
required
 Widespread practice of parboiling during milling for binding of
micronutrients
>96% of households parboil paddy before milling
>18% of households parboil twice before milling
 However, urban consumers rural landless reached through
markets may get less benefit because mills have grains over
polished to get better price
>21% of the mills polish rice for more than once - broken grains
and bran are used as poultry feed which fetches high price in
the market
To be effective in reaching consumers vitamins and minerals
have to be put into endosperm

11. THANK YOU