Rice and wheat losing the nutrients

• Integrity Education, Delhi
• 20, Jun 2021

• Zinc and iron deficiency affects billions of people globally and the countries with this deficiency have diets composed mainly of rice, wheat, corn, and barley.
• Researchers found depleting trends in grain density of zinc and iron in rice and wheat cultivated in India.
• Zinc and Iron concentrations in grains of rice cultivars released in the 1960s were 27.1 mg/kg and 59.8 mg/kg. This depleted to 20.6 mg/kg and 43.1 mg/kg, respectively in the 2000s.
• In wheat, the concentrations of Zinc and Iron-- 33.3 mg/kg and 57.6 mg/kg in cultivars of the 1960s, dropped to 23.5 mg/kg and 46.4 mg/kg, respectively in cultivars released during the 2010s.

Reasons for depletion

• Dilution effect: decreased nutrient concentration in response to higher grain yield. This means the rate of yield increase is not compensated by the rate of nutrient take-up by the plants.
• Soils supporting plants could be low in plant-available nutrients

Solution

• Biofortification: Breeding food crops that are rich in micronutrients
• Management of soil nutrients by changing cropping patterns.