MDG 4: Reduce Child Mortality

Every year, 11 million children in developing countries die before they reach the age of five — half of them from malnutrition. Increased food availability resulted in a 25 percent drop in child malnutrition from 1970 to 1995, demonstrating that agricultural productivity improvements make important contributions to gains in child survival rates.

Research Results :
-- Orange-fleshed sweetpotatoes with enhanced beta-carotene help combat child malnutrition in large swaths of East Africa.

-- An innovative CGIAR initiative, the HarvestPlus Challenge Program, is working to develop staple foods rich in the micronutrients vitamin A, iron and zinc using a process called biofortification. Scientists are currently focusing on rice, wheat, maize, cassava, maize, beans and sweetpotato, the basic food crops that are grown and consumed by poor people and for which a solid knowledge base already exists. Subsequent efforts will include the so-called orphan crops that do not attract investment from the private sector: millet, sorghum, potatoes, pigeonpeas, lentils, plantains, barley, cowpeas, groundnuts and yams.