Cash is less wasteful and economically distorting than food or fuel subsidies (though school lunches can boost enrolment and cut micronutrient deficiencies).
Phytase breaks up the acid, liberating the phosphorus and helping micronutrient absorption.
But the hidden hunger of micronutrient deficiencies harms even more people and inflicts lasting damage on them and their societies.
Nor did pure micronutrient supplements have any effect on birth-weight when she gave them to pregnant women.
At the top came "bundled micronutrient interventions", which means giving poor people micronutrient supplements such as vitamins and iodine.
Trace element, also called micronutrient, in biology, any chemical element required by living organisms in minute amounts (that is less than 0.1 percent by volume [1,000 parts per million]), usually as part of a vital enzyme (a cell-produced catalytic protein).
Of importance are the nutrient elements phosphorus, nitrogen, and silicon, along with such essential micronutrient trace elements as iron, cobalt, and copper.
Vitamin B6, water-soluble organic compound that is an essential micronutrient for microorganisms and animals.
The cost of under-nutrition and micronutrient deficiencies – for example of vitamin A, which can cause blindness – is estimated at 2 to 3 per cent of global economic output, or about $1.4 to $2.1 trillion a year, the FAO said.
"It is now becoming clear that taking this micronutrient in one or two daily doses is not natural, in that it does not reproduce the same metabolic effects as calcium in food".
Golden Rice would never offer more than a partial solution to micronutrient deficiency, and the intellectual-property rights have long been controlled by the nonprofit International Rice Research Institute, which makes the rights available to researchers at no cost.
