Emerging Science, Technology & Innovation Conclave (ESTIC) 2025 and Biofortification
Context:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the first Emerging Science Technology and Innovation Conclave (ESTIC) at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi.
This new conclave replaces the Indian Science Congress (held its last session in 2023).
ESTIC Conclave will be held from November 3-5, 2025.
It brings together over 3,000 participants from academia, industry, and government to discuss 11 key thematic areas, including "Emerging Agriculture Technologies"
PM's Call for Nutrition Security
In his inaugural address, the Prime Minister urged India's scientists to generate ideas to move from “food security to nutrition security”
He specifically called for the creation of biofortified crops to address malnutrition and asked if India could develop next-generation biofortified crops to help combat malnutrition globally
What is Crop Biofortification?
Biofortification is the process of increasing the density of micronutrients in widely consumed staple crops through conventional plant breeding, agronomic practices, or genetic modification (tools like CRISPR and Genome Editing).
Biofortification efforts have focused primarily on addressing vitamin A((beta-carotene), iron, and zinc deficiencies, which collectively account for the greatest unaddressed burden of disease.
The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has already developed 87 biofortified varieties across 16 crops.
These varieties are improved for essential nutrients like protein, iron, zinc, calcium, lysine, tryptophan, and provitamin-A
Popular Biofortified Crops includes: Golden Rice (beta-carotene), Iron Pearl Millet, Maize (PUSA-QPM9, PUSA HM4, PUSA HM8 etc), pearl millet varieties ETC.
Copenhagen Consensus 2008::
Its main goal is to analyze the world’s biggest problems (such as hunger, disease, malnutrition, global warming, etc.) and identify the most cost-effective ways to solve them
Some of Ten Major Global Challenges includes, Global warming, Terrorism, Hunger and Malnutrition, Water and Sanitation etc.
Biofortification was one of the interventions studied and ranked by the Copenhagen Consensus 2008. It was recognized as a highly cost-effective solution to the global problem of micronutrient malnutrition.