Zinc rice by 2013
New variety to help children be in sound health
Saidul Haque
Agricultural scientists of the country will release a new variety of rice – zinc-fortified rice – by 2013 with concentration of 24 mg of zinc a kg essential for both physical and mental growth of children.
Alamgir Hossain, principal scientific officer of Plant Breeding Division of Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI), said: “We are trying to develop it in bio-fortification process and the production target is about 7 tonnes per hectare as the farmers are interested in cultivating the variety because of its high yielding capacity.”
Harvest Plus, an international research project under Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGSIR), will release the new variety by 2013.
Nowadays farmers are not willing to cultivate less yielding variety of rice because of less profit, said the researchers of BRRI.
Agriculture Minister Matia Chowdhury said she suggested that the scientists should take into consideration such a variety that will reduce the production cost of farmers.
A new variety of rice must be tasty apart from other qualities to become popular, otherwise it will bring no positive results, the minister mentioned.
Most of the people in our country suffer from zinc deficiency while it is essential for both mental and physical growth of children.
Children of low-income family of the country are fully dependent on rice and their physical growth is hampering due to zinc deficiency, Alamgir said.
For the micronutrient deficiency, our nation is lagging behind intellectually compared to that of other nations, he added.
According to World Health Organisation, if 20 percent of children of a country do not have proper physical growth compared to their age, it is considered that people of that country are experiencing serious zinc deficiency.
“Most of the people in our country can not meet the demand for zinc,” said Mohammad Abdul Mannan, director general of BRRI. The average amount of zinc in BRRI released rice variety is 13 mg/kg which is not sufficient for human body, said Abdul Mannan.
“We are also trying to enrich the new rice variety with iron content so that people can get both iron and zinc in the same rice,” Abdul Mannan informed.
Mahabub Hossain, executive director of BRAC said, “We are very much hopeful about this new rice variety; we are also trying to keep its price within the reach of consumers to popularise it,” Mahabub said.
