From More Food to Better Food: Biofortification Challenge Program meeting held in Cali

Seventy-five scientists and practitioners from five continents, eight CGIAR Centers, and 40 partner and stakeholder organizations across nine disciplines met at CIAT in June to strengthen the alliance that constitutes the Biofortification Challenge Program.

"Breeding staple foods to reduce malnutrition is not a challenge any single discipline or institution can address on its own," said Howarth Bouis, Biofortification Program Director. "Shifting the paradigm from more food to better food, linking agriculture and nutrition, takes partnerships and uncommon commitment…a commitment to the overall vision, a commitment to respecting the perspectives and contributions of partners with different skills and responsibilities, and a commitment to communicate across disciplinary and institutional boundaries."

The agenda for this first planning meeting was designed to capture synergies and further develop the challenge program’s management framework, reach a common understanding on program agreements and principles, ensure that program obligations dovetail with the institutional objectives of the various collaborators, plan outreach strategies, and to design optimum communication tools and strategies. The meeting provided an opportunity for partners to learn from one another to make the breeding and dissemination of nutrient-dense staple foods a reality.

"We are engaging in an effort that is both monumental and historic," said Joachim Voss, Director General, CIAT. "We have succeeded in assembling the ingredients to make biofortification happen in a way that will improve the diets and livelihoods of the poor."

This initial program-wide meeting set the stage for individual crop team meetings to be held in September and October that will involve a wider group of collaborators and stakeholders. In anticipation of full start up of the challenge program in January 2004, detailed work plans are being developed.