by Samar Zuberi
A recent food fortification scoping study endorses food
fortification strategies in Pakistan. The report was commissioned
by DFID Pakistan and conducted by MQSUN. Local analysis on effective means to
address micronutrient undernourishment or ‘hidden hunger’ is much needed. Over
half of Pakistan’s population of children under 5 suffer from anaemia and
vitamin A deficiency and 39% are zinc deficient. Half of non-pregnant mothers
are anaemic, and 42% are deficient in vitamin A and, the same percentage are
deficient in zinc (NNS 2011).
The report provides a landscape analysis of food fortification
interventions in Pakistan. It highlights lack of legislation and weak
monitoring and evaluation systems as the main weaknesses in the regulatory
environment, while procurement of additional inputs and internal quality
control as the main barriers the private sector faces at a manufacturing level.
The report also assesses the feasibility of implementation and impact of four select
interventions, and conducts an analysis of these interventions. The four
interventions the report examines are:
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| Photo Credit: Aga Khan University – Farheen Ayub Khan |
- Wheat flour fortification with iron;
- Edible oil/ghee with vitamin A and D;
- Biofortification of wheat with iron and zinc;
- Zinc-fortified fertilizers.
The report categorizes the last two options as agricultural solutions
and determines that these require further evaluations to assess their
feasibility, whereas the first two present viable options for delivering
micronutrients on a large scale. Applying a broader perspective, all four
interventions involve agriculture; the first two options directly involve
locally produced agricultural inputs, whereas the last two involve agricultural
technological innovation.
The study as a whole in fact lends a strong foundation to LANSA
Pakistan’s work on a mutli-country research study which aims to answer the
question ‘What public and private actions are needed to strengthen the impacts
of agri-food value chains on nutrition?’ More on this LANSA study can be found here.
