Reaching out to Farmers with High Zinc Wheat Varieties through Public-Private Partnerships – An Experience from Eastern-Gangetic Plains of India

Govindan Velu*, Ravi Singh, Arun Balasubramaniam, Vinod Kumar Mishra, Ramesh Chand, Chhavi Tiwari, Arun Joshi, Parminder Virk, Binu Cherian and Wolfgang Pfeiffer

Reaching out to Farmers with High Zinc Wheat Varieties through Public-Private Partnerships – An Experience from Eastern-Gangetic Plains of India.
The main objective of the Harvest Plus led wheat biofortification breeding program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center and its national program partners in South Asia is to develop and disseminate competitive wheat varieties with high grain zinc (Zn) and other essential agronomic features. The emphasis of this program is to introduce novel sources of genetic diversity from wild species and landraces, into the adapted wheat background.

The biofortification breeding program of CIMMYT utilizes new wheat varieties from the core-breeding program as background parents that are higher yielding, resistant to rusts, heat tolerant, water use efficient and 5-10% higher yielding than main varieties grown at present. The biofortified
high Zn wheat varieties with 20 to 40% Zn superiority and grain yield potential.

For instance, this variety had about 5-10% yield advantage under limited irrigated conditions over the currently grown local varieties with 40% Zn increment (Figures 1 and 2). All the farmers expressed their satisfaction about the performance of ‘Zinc Shakthi’ and other leads which are in seed chain. Most of the farmers ensured that they will use part of the harvested seed for their use and will also distribute to neighboring farmers. Some of the farmers also expressed their satisfaction about its grain size, cooking quality, grain color and overall appearance. Astha Beej based in Uttarakhand also marketed 4 tons of ‘ZincShakthi’ seeds in 2014 as “Chitra” and also multiplied its seeds in over 100 acres for marketing in 2015.


Adv Food Technol Nutr Sci Open J
. 2015; 1(3): 73-75.doi: 10.17140/AFTNSOJ-1-112

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