Consumer willingness to pay a premium for orange-fleshed sweet potato puree products: a gender-responsive evidence from Becker–DeGroot–Marschak experimental auction among low- and middle-income consumers in selected regions of Nairobi, Kenya

Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is a major public health problem affecting people of all ages, particularly women of reproductive age and young children in the Global South. Nutrient-enriched (biofortified) orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP) has promising potential as a sustainable food vehicle to combat VAD. Part of ongoing efforts to combat VAD, particularly among the urban poor populations, include the introduction of innovative OFSP puree, which is utilized as a functional and substitute ingredient in widely consumed baked and fried products. In Kenya, the OFSP puree is used to make commercial products that are affordable by low- and middle-income households. However, there is limited knowledge of consumer awareness, willingness to pay (WTP), and/or how gender plays a role in the uptake of these products. Following a multistage sampling technique, this study employs the Becker–DeGroot–Marschak (BDM) experimental auction method to assess if men and women consumers—from selected, highly populated low- and middle-income areas of Nairobi County in Kenya—are aware and if they would be willing to pay for OFSP puree products. Integrating gender considerations, we use three of the most widely consumed OFSP puree products, bread, buns, and chapati, and three treatment categories, naive, nutritional information, and OFSP puree substitute products' references prices to deduce the WTP for OFSP puree products among men and women. Results showed limited awareness of OFSP and OFSP puree products among men and women. However, both men and women were willing to pay a premium for the OFSP puree products. The intergender comparison showed that women were more willing to pay a premium for the OFSP puree products than men. Gender, age, education, knowledge of OFSP puree products, income category, availability of nutritional information, and reference pricing stand out as significant determinants of WTP

Commercializing public agricultural technologies and goods: A framework to identify opportunities for interventions

Commercialisation (i.e., the process of introducing a new product or technology into commerce or making it available in the market) is considered a promising strategy to scale up the consumption of biofortified foods. To inform the development of effective commercialisation strategies, a systematic assessment of country- and crop-specific value chains is essential to identify success factors, barriers, and opportunities. Tools, such as commercialisation frameworks, that can be used to systematically synthesise and analyse such information have been developed but vary widely across different value chains and sectors. A commercialisation framework specific for public agricultural technologies and goods was recently developed. In this paper, we summarise the process of developing that commercialisation framework and its finding, and discuss its implications for, and application in, efforts to scale up biofortified foods. The commercialisation framework for agricultural and publicly developed technologies and goods is made up of both a commercialisation process map and cross-cutting success factors (i.e., supply, demand, policy, finance, and development outcomes), and looks at profitability using a commercialisation framework process wheel. As such, it offers two complementary dimensions (placing profitability at the centre) for identifying bottlenecks and accelerators and can be used to identify where interventions can maximise impact. Case studies on fortified wheat flour in the United States and vitamin A-biofortified cassava in Nigeria were used to illustrate how the framework can be used to synthesise and organise the different information about a food product value chain and subsequently analyse it to inform commercialisation strategy decisions.Non-PRIFPRI5; HarvestPlus; 2 Promoting Healthy Diets and Nutrition for all; 3 Building Inclusive and Efficient Markets, Trade Systems, and Food Industry; 4 Transforming Agricultural and Rural EconomiesHarvestPlu

Developing strategies to commercialise biofortified crops and foods

Biofortification (or nutrient enrichment) of staple crops has the potential to contribute to reducing micronutrient deficiencies by increasing micronutrient intakes. In 2019, GAIN and HarvestPlus entered a partnership to lead the Commercialisation of Biofortified Crops (CBC) Programme, which aims to catalyse commercial markets for biofortified crops in six countries across Africa and Asia. During the CBC programme inception phase, information on the value chains and their challenges and opportunities for commercialisation were collected for each country-crop combination through literature reviews and third party-led commercialisation assessments. In this paper, we summarise the processes undertaken to identify the potential opportunities and barriers for commercialisation and describe how the findings were used to develop commercialisation strategies for nine country-crop combinations.Non-PRIFPRI5; HarvestPlus; 2 Promoting Healthy Diets and Nutrition for allHarvestPlusCGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH

Bioaccessibility and bioavailability of biofortified food and food products: Current evidence

HarvestPlusBiofortification increases micronutrient content in staple crops through conventional breeding, agronomic methods, or genetic engineering. Bioaccessibility is a prerequisite for a nutrient to fulfill a biological function, e.g., to be bioavailable. The objective of this systematic review is to examine the bioavailability (and bioaccessibility as a proxy via in vitro and animal models) of the target micronutrients enriched in conventionally biofortified crops that have undergone post-harvest storage and/or processing, which has not been systematically reviewed previously, to our knowledge. We searched for articles indexed in MEDLINE, Agricola, AgEcon, and Center for Agriculture and Biosciences International databases, organizational websites, and hand-searched studies’ reference lists to identify 18 studies reporting on bioaccessibility and 58 studies on bioavailability. Conventionally bred biofortified crops overall had higher bioaccessibility and bioavailability than their conventional counterparts, which generally provide more absorbed micronutrient on a fixed ration basis. However, these estimates depended on exact cultivar, processing method, context (crop measured alone or as part of a composite meal), and experimental method used. Measuring bioaccessibility and bioavailability of target micronutrients in biofortified and conventional foods is critical to optimize nutrient availability and absorption, ultimately to improve programs targeting micronutrient deficiency

Review of the Impact Pathways of Biofortified Foods and Food Products

Biofortification is the process of increasing the concentrations and/or bioavailability of micronutrients in staple crops and has the potential to mitigate micronutrient deficiencies globally. Efficacy trials have demonstrated benefits of consuming biofortified crops (BFCs); and in this paper, we report on the results of a systematic review of biofortified crops effectiveness in real-world settings. We synthesized the evidence on biofortified crops consumption through four Impact Pathways: (1) purchased directly; (2) in informal settings; (3) in formal settings; or (4) in farmer households, from their own production. Twenty-five studies, covering Impact Pathway 1 (five studies), Impact Pathway 2 (three), Impact Pathway 3 (three), Impact Pathway 4 (21) were included. The review found evidence of an improvement in micronutrient status via Impact Pathway 4 (mainly in terms of vitamin A from orange sweet potato) in controlled interventions that involved the creation of demand, the extension of agriculture and promotion of marketing. In summary, evidence supports that biofortified crops can be part of food systems interventions to reduce micronutrient deficiencies in farmer households; ongoing and future research will help fully inform their potential along the other three Impact Pathways for scaling up