Addressing nutrition along with hunger: Funding and policy push vital

High-yielding crops ended hunger, but often at a nutritional cost. New research shows modern grains lag traditional varieties, reviving the case for biofortification

Are modern high-yielding varieties of grains less nutritive than traditional desi crops? This is a common perception that seems largely, albeit not wholly, well founded. Some scientific studies have also upheld this notion. High-yielding crop varieties developed in the initial few decades after the Green Revolution were bred chiefly to enhance yield, regardless of the quality or nutritional value of their grains. The main consideration was mitigating widely prevalent hunger by augmenting food supplies rather than promoting good health through balanced nutrition. 

The result, expectedly, is that though food grains are now available aplenty, and the country has emerged as one of the world’s leading food grain exporters, the incidence of undernourishment and malnutrition remains woefully high. The Global Hunger Index 2025 ranks India lowly at 102nd position, among 123 countries, in the “serious hunger” category. The poor score is because as many as 32.9 per cent of children below the age of five are “stunted” (low height for age) and 18.7 per cent “wasted” (low weight for height). Malnutrition is rampant also among adults, especially women and lactating mothers. About 12 per cent of the population is underfed, and nearly two-thirds do not eat what could be deemed a healthy diet. 

It is, indeed, only in recent years that the nutrition aspect has begun to receive due attention from agricultural scientists. Crop breeders now include improvement of quality and the nutritional profile of staple grains among their priorities. Efforts are also afoot to develop biofortified crops through conventional breeding or biotechnology. They have an inherently high content of key nutrients like iron, zinc, and Vitamin A. Over 100 highly productive biofortified varieties of various crops, including mass-consumed staples like rice, wheat, and maize, have already been released for cultivation in different parts of the country. These have been enriched with essential nutrients like zinc, iron, vitamins, and protein. However, many of the crop varieties, widely grown even now, do not match their older counterparts in terms of nutritional value. 

According to a research paper published in the February 2025 issue of Food Science & Nutrition (Volume 13, Issue 2), modern wheat varieties have, on average, 19 to 28 per cent lower concentrations of minerals, such as zinc, iron, and magnesium, than older varieties. Generally, as the yield per hectare rises, the nutrient density of the grains tends to decline, this paper maintains. While breeding crop strains having special traits like higher immunity against diseases and pests and shorter life span, the nutrition aspect often gets overlooked. 

More or less similar views have been expressed in another report prepared jointly by scientists of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the Bidhan Chandra Krishi Vishwavidyalaya (West Bengal), and the Hyderabad-based National Institute of Nutrition. This report categorically states that the Green Revolution had helped India achieve food security, but by compromising its nutritional security. It reckons that rice and wheat, which meet over 50 per cent of the daily energy requirements of the people in India, have lost up to 45 per cent of their food value over the past 50 years or so. This paper was published in 2023 under the category of “Science Reports” (Article number 21164) in the multidisciplinary science journal Nature. 

A significant observation made in this paper is that the depleting trend in the nutrient concentration of grains of the high-yielding varieties developed in the post-Green Revolution era is caused by plant factors rather than soil factors. The plants of these varieties are generally incapable of sequestering sufficient nutrients from the soil. More importantly, it also reveals that some of the recently evolved crop strains, especially those of rice, have shown the presence of certain toxic elements, notably arsenic, which are harmful for health. 

The high incidence of anemia and stunting among children is also attributed to the growing trend of consuming polished rice. Many useful elements, including vitamins, minerals, fibre, and fatty acids, are lost during the process of rice polishing, which is done primarily to enhance the market appeal of the grains. The deficiency of these vital nutrients also causes high morbidity and mortality among children. 

Thankfully, novel breeding techniques are now available to address the issue of nutrient deficiency in crop varieties. Apart from biofortification, gene-editing technology also enables evolving high-yielding crops having more nutritious grains. However, supportive policies and adequate funding are needed to promote the use of such technologies in crop-breeding programmes of the ICAR and state agricultural universities. The need, basically, is to upgrade the research infrastructure, and financial health, of these institutions to enable them to use hi-tech breeding methods to improve the nutrient status of grains of new crop varieties. Appropriate incentives also need to be offered to seed companies to multiply the seeds of nutrient-dense crop varieties, and to farmers to use these seeds. 

surinder.sud@gmail.com