Biofortification in Fruits

Abstract

The increasing population, lack of proper nutrition and hunger are the most significant challenges faced by many countries over the globe. The dificiency of vitamins and minerals is of major public health concern. Vitamin deficiency, especially vitamin A deficiency (VAD), is dominant in many developing nations and is the leading cause of death in these nations. VAD leads to >600,000 deaths among women and children across the globe every year specifically the kids <5 years of age group are majorly affected. Malnutrition due to micronutrients such as selenium, iodine, iron and zinc affects 15{\%}, 30{\%}, 60{\%} and 30{\%} of the population. Various health issues and physical disorders among individuals are seen due to the insufficient availability of these micronutrients and minerals. Customary farming practices can enhance the content of nutrition in plant foods up to a certain level, but in order to address the negative impacts of the vitamins and minerals and to achieve the long-term goals, biofortification is used. Biofortification is the process of enhancing the nutrient content in food crops using agronomic, conventional, and transgenic breeding methods. Biofortification is undertaken in many fruit crops like banana, cassava, beans, tomato, orange sweet potato (OSP), cowpea, pumpkin, and so forth. Also, few traditional and transgenic varieties have been released, while many varieties are in the development pipeline. The consequences of adequacy and efficacy studies, even recent accomplishments in delivery, give proof that biofortification is a promising procedure for battling hidden hunger. This article provides a general outline of biofortification strategies, and Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis of every strategy. In addition, it also addresses present and future challenges for biofortification efforts in agriculture crops.