Recent Advances in Sorghum Biofortification Research

Besides hunger, malnutrition resulting from the intake of food poor in nutritional quality, particularly lacking in crucial micronutrients, has been recognized as a serious global health problem, more so among children, women of reproductive age, and pregnant and lactating women in the developing world. Efforts are underway to address this hidden hunger by various means. Biofortification is a sustainable option to combat micronutrient malnutrition and complements dietary diversification, food fortification, and supplementation that are currently employed to address micronutrient deficiency in human diets. Sorghum is among the top 10 crops that feed this world. It is a C 4 species with high photosynthetic efficiency and inherent high biomass yield potential. High levels of tolerance to drought and high temperatures, and adaptation to problem soils make it increasingly more relevant for food security in view of climate change. Sorghum is among the cheapest sources of micronutrients; therefore, biofortification of sorghum is of high priority. This chapter reviews the importance of sorghum as a source of energy and nutrition, its grain structure and processing methods in food preparation that facilitate maximum use of accumulated micronutrients, base levels of grain iron (Fe) and zinc (Zn) concentrations, breeding targets, phenotyping methods used to assess Fe and Zn, and the feasibility of enhancing Fe and Zn by nutrient management. It also dwells on the genetic variability for grain Fe and Zn concentration and for β‐carotene and phytates concentration in a range of sorghum materials, character associations between Fe and Zn and both of them with other agronomic traits, genetic control/genes and quantitative trait loci (QTL) of Fe and Zn concentration, studies on combining ability and heterosis for Fe and Zn in sorghum and the feasibility of predicting hybrid performance for Fe and Zn based on the performance of parental line. Furthermore, the progress in product development pipeline and way forward are briefly discussed to make the consumption of biofortified sorghum a reality in the near future.