Biofortification: Golden way tosave life from micronutrient deficiency-A review

More than half of the world's population is affected by micronutrient malnutrition or deficiency and painstaking to be among the most seriousglobal challenges to humankind. Modern plant breeding along with agronomic manipulation has been oriented toward achieving high agronomic yields than nutritional qualities. However, other efforts are expanding to alleviating the problems through industrial fortification or pharmaceutical supplementation which is very costly for the commoners. Micronutrient malnutrition or hidden hunger is very common among adolescent girls, women and preschool children caused mainly by low dietary intake of micronutrients, especially zinc and iron. Biofortification, the process of increasing the bioavailable concentrations of essential elements in edible portions of crop plants through agronomic intervention or genetic selection, may be the solution to malnutrition or deficiency mitigation. The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research has been investigating the genetic potential to improve bioavailability of Fe and Zn in staple food crops such as rice, wheat, maize, common beans, and cassava.