The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (Icrisat) has launched research to enhance beta-carotene in groundnut.

The research is part of the ‘global challenge programme’ of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) aimed at the biofortification of crops to combat malnutrition due to the deficiency of nutrients such as iron, zinc and vitamin A in food crops. Icrisat is one of the 15 international agricultural research institutes affiliated to CGIAR.

Plant breeder Dr KK Sharma told FE, “Icrisat’s research will help combat vitamin A deficiency in the malnourished. We are planning to target the malnourished people, particularly women and children across the globe. Majority of the malnourished live in semi-arid tropics. This variety of groundnut can also be cultivated in India.”

He said that at Icrisat, tissue culture and transformation methods had been optimised to obtain high frequency (80-90%) shoot regeneration from cotyledon and leaf explants of groundnut. The technology is now being used to produce new transgenic groundnuts with higher levels of beta-carotenes. Icrisat scientists hope that such groundnuts will form an important genetic base for incorporating resistance to other biotic and abiotic constraints to the productivity of this important crop of the semi-arid tropics.

Vitamin A deficiency can lead to night blindness and total blindness in children. About 350,000 children become partly or totally blind each year because of vitamin A deficiency and about 60% of them die within a few months after going blind according to an estimate of WHO, said Dr Sharma.

He said that while vitamin A was only present in animal products, its predecessor beta-carotene or provitamin A was found in several plant species. However, these are not taken up easily from digested food, because they are fat-soluble and their bioavailability depends on the presence of fat or oil in the same meal, failing which they are excreted undigested.

Oral delivery of vitamin A is problematic, mainly because of the lack of infrastructure thus necessitating urgent need of alternatives, he said.

© 2005 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.