User:El Kebir Roby

Flour Fortification Initiative
The Flour Fortification Initiative (FFI) is a network of individuals and organizations working together to make micronutrient fortification of flour produced by large roller mills standard practice. The network is composed of representatives of private, public and civic organizations who combine their resources and collaborate to foster flour fortification. The representatives are farmers, wheat procurement and marketing organizations, millers, mill manufacturers, producers and/or distributors of flour improvers and fortificants, food industries that use flour, non-government organizations, agencies of the United Nations, government agencies and other national entities.

Global Impact of Vitamin and Mineral Malnutrition
Lack of vitamins and minerals in the diet damages the health of one-third of the world's people and is a major barrier to economic development. Vitamin and mineral deficiency causes impairment of hundreds of millions of growing minds and the lowering of national IQs, wholesale damage to immune systems, the deaths of more than a million children a year, 200,000 serious birth defects annually, and the deaths of approximately 50,000 young women a year during pregnancy and childbirth.

Economics of Flour Fortification
Fortifying flour is a sound economic investment, both globally and in national markets. The Copenhagen Consensus, a panel of eight of the world’s most distinguished economists, concluded that providing vitamins and minerals to combat malnutrition, especially iron-deficiency anemia through fortification, has an exceptionally high benefit-to-cost ratio and is the second most important opportunity to improve the economic state of the world today. Fortifying flour is one of the most effective solutions to vitamin and mineral deficiency. Experience has shown that flour fortification with vitamins and minerals offers a low cost sustainable strategy to improve the health of peoples and countries around the world.

Public-Private-Civic Collaboration
The mission of FFI is to stimulate interaction and partnership between the public and civic sectors and the grain and flour industries to inform and encourage these industries to make fortification of flour a normal part of large roller mill flour production. The success of the salt iodization efforts demonstrates what can be achieved when a product-specific industry assumes leadership in improving public health. The network is governed by the FFI Leaders Group, a group of executives or leaders who can represent and make decisions on behalf of their companies or organizations. Some of the leading members of the FFI network include:

Growth of Flour Fortification
Since 2004, leaders in the FFI network have worked extensively with each other and thousands of others to promote and support national flour fortification efforts around the world. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, the worldwide percentage of wheat-flour fortification increased from 18% in 2004 to 27% in 2007. The estimated number of people with access to fortified wheat flour increased by approximately 540 million, and the annual number of newborns whose mothers had access to fortified wheat flour during pregnancy increased by approximately 14 million.