HYDERABAD, Aug 27: Agriculture experts have recommended that no single type of intervention can by itself resolve the problem of micronutrient malnutrition problems.

They were speaking at a discussion after a presentation given by Dr Abdul Rasheed, a noted soil scientist of Pakistan at the Sindh Agriculture University.

Dr Rasheed gave a detailed background on soil chemistry of some parts of Pakistan.

He said that micronutrient malnutrition had its impact on the health of low-income population of the country.

Experts stressed the need for evolving a comprehensive strategy of multiple types of interventions adaptable to specific regions.

They said that in conceptualising solutions for a range of nutritional deficiencies, interdisciplinary communication between plant scientists and human nutritionists holds great potential.

Human nutritionists need to be informed, for example, about the extent to which vitamin and mineral density of specific foods, as well as compounds that promote and inhibit their bio-availability, can be manipulated through plant breeding.

They said that plant breeders need to be sensitised to the major influence that they might have had on nutrient utilisation in the past and the potential of plant breeding for future improvements in nutrition and health.

With increase in population at the alarming rate, resources for food production and other purposes become increasingly stressed.

Therefore coordination between the agricultural system and human nutrition will become increasingly obvious and impossible to ignore in formulating solutions, the agriculture scientists said.

In his key note address, Sindh Agriculture University vice-chancellor Dr Bashir Shaikh said that the permanent solution to micronutrient malnutrition in agriculture of developing countries might be a substantial improvement in genetic potential of conventional gene pool by recombinant DNA technology through marker-assisted selection process.

He said that there was paucity of research grade documentation on the mineral status of whole Sindh.

He urged scientists of the SAU Tandojam to set up baseline data on micronutrients status of soils of Sindh.

The vice-chancellor said that researchers had genetically modified plant genetic potential to make it tolerate low levels of boron, a nutrient often lacking from soils and it was likely that a similar approach could be used in crop species to provide a cheap alternative to using boron fertilizer which could cause pollution.