Rice Biofortification for Assessment of Hidden Hunger: A Review

Biofortification is an effective and economical method to improve the micronutrient content of crops, particularly staples that sustain human populations in developing countries. Rice (Oryza sativa), one of the most important food crops in the world, feeds more than half of the world’s population and issued as a staple food in many parts of Asia. Considered as a “model cereal crop” for genomic studies. Most of the staple foods including rice provide diets of low nutritional quality including vitamins, essential amino acids, iron, zinc, iodine, etc. Iron and zinc deficiencies are the two major factors for micronutrient malnutrition in the world, affecting an estimated 2 billion people. A lot of variability does exist for micronutrient (Fe, Zn, Vitamin A, etc) content and bioavailability in many crops including rice. Here, we briefly review the progress in biofortification of rice with micronutrient elements (Fe and Zn).