RICE FORTIFICATIONScaling Up Rice Fortification in Bangladesh

The overall objective of the Rice Fortification Programme is:

“to reduce micronutrient deficiencies in high-risk groups in Bangladesh, with a

strong focus on women and children and, through that, to contribute to the

empowerment of women.”

Description

While significant gains have been made in relation to poverty reduction and

development in Bangladesh, high rates of extreme poverty, food insecurity and

under-nutrition still affect sixty million people who survive on less than the

minimum 2,122 kcal per day. Extreme under-nutrition among women is still

prevalent in Bangladesh. Mothers stunted by under nutrition give birth to low

birth weight babies; which affects more than one in five new-borns. This means

that from the beginning of life the child’s learning and future income earning

potential is greatly inhibited, thus increasing their risk of under-nutrition in

adulthood and creating an intergenerational cycle of under nutrition. One of the

greatest challenges facing Bangladesh is to break this intergenerational cycle of

under nutrition.

Rice is the main staple food and consumed in substantial quantity in

Bangladesh. Regular milled rice is low in micronutrients and serves primarily as

a source of carbohydrates. Fortified rice kernels developed by DSM contain

added micronutrients, but look, taste and cook like ordinary rice. Therefore,

fortified rice can deliver essential vitamins and minerals missing in many

people’s meals, and can help ensure the poorest get the nutrition they need for

an active and healthy life in their present diets. The Scaling Up Rice

Fortification in Bangladesh programme aims at making fortified rice available to

180,000 direct beneficiaries and indirectly to another 380,000 people. The

project will target predominantly poor women. Eighty four per cent of the direct

beneficiaries will be women and by improving their nutritional status, in

combination with social and economic skills development, the project will have

a positive impact on activities contributing to the empowerment of women.

At a different level, the overall goal that the Rice Fortification project hopes to

achieve is to convince the government and donors about the merits of rice

fortification and persuade these to make available the additional funds needed

to mainstream rice fortification in all government social safety net programmes

and in garment factories. In addition, the project aims at creating a market for

fortified rice among the general public. For this, the foundations will be laid for

both consumer demand for fortified rice as well as for the local production of

essential inputs.

Duration

December 1, 2013 – May 31, 2017

(3 years and 6 months)

Program Area

Target Group

500.000 people, especially women.

Donor

Embassy of the Kingdom of the

Netherlands (EKN)

Implementing Partners

Partner Information

The World Food Programme is a UN

organisation which has a humanitarian

and development mandate, which

includes: food aid in emergencies, the

use of food aid to support economic

and social development and

contribution to international food

security. The Bangladesh Country

Office is at the forefront of WFP’s

global shift from food aid to food

assistance. WFP has been assisting

the poorest people of Bangladesh

through development programmes over

the past 39 years in close cooperation

with the Government (GoB).

DSM is one of the world’s largest

producers of micronutrients. It strives

for market growth for fortified rice by

transferring the technology to local

private sector partners, to improve

nutritional status and address

micronutrient deficiencies. In a joint

venture with Bühler, a Swiss

multinational company specialized in

food processing plants and equipment,

DSM has developed the NutriRice

technology, to produce high quality

fortified rice kernels.

Program ID

Activity No. Pir 25478

Contract No. DHA0117741

Budget

EUR 3,75 million

Contact

WFP Bangladesh:

IDB Bhaban 14th, 16th and 17th Floor

E/8-A, Rokeya Sharani Agargaon,

Sher-e Bangla Nagar, Dhaka-1207

Rezaul Karim, Head of Programme

Planning and Implementation Support

(PPIS): rezaul.karim@wfp.org

EKN: dha-OS@minbuza.nl

Programme Components or Outcomes

1. Mainstream fortified rice in the government-run social safety net

programmes: The first step is getting rice fortification integrated/

mainstreamed in existing programmes. Subsequently, the second step of

the result chain is taking the fortified rice to the beneficiaries to realize

improved nutrition, women empowerment and poverty reduction as well as

some specific programme lessons. The project is presently working through

the VGD (Vulnerable Group Development: 100% women) and VGF

(Vulnerable Group Feeding: 50% women) social safety net programmes run

by the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs and the Minister of Disaster

Management and Relief respectively.

2. Integrate fortified rice into WFP-assisted programmes: The project also

works with WFP-assisted food distribution programmes; the ‘Enhancing

Resilience to the Effects of Natural Disasters and Climate Change’

programme, with 70% of the beneficiaries being women, and the ‘ School

Meals initiative’ has solely children as its beneficiaries.

3. Mainstream fortified rice in garment factories’ corporate social responsibility

programmes; This project also targets large-scale garment factories in

order to provide fortified rice to their workers as an extension of the

garment factories’ Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes.

Approximately 90% of garment workers are women; working with garment

factories offers an excellent entry point to address undernutrition of women.

4. Strengthen market demand for fortified rice: This programme component

refers to making the general public aware of the benefits of fortified rice and

creating economic demand for fortified rice, which will in turn help sustain

local production of fortified rice. To achieve this, WFP will develop a Social

Marketing Strategy as part of the project.

5. Establish blending capacity for fortified rice; Rice Fortification emphasizes

the importance of capacity-building of the national industry to fortify rice and

produce fortified rice at a large scale. Fortified rice should be blended in

mills in an appropriate manner to avoid loss of micronutrients and to ensure

the correct blend.

6. Establish production of fortified rice kernels: Fortification costs are currently

relatively high in Bangladesh; this can decrease substantially with local

production of fortified kernels (now imported from China) and through

optimizing the value chain. The Rice Fortification project helps rice mills in

Bangladesh to adjust their production process so as to be able to blend

fortified kernels with normal rice.

Contribution to National Policy Programs or Projects

National Food Policy

Country Investment Plan for Agriculture, Food security and Nutrition

Government-driven social safety net programmes

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes