ABSTRACT
The world’s production of banana and plantain is estimated at about 125 million tons per year, placing the crop first in the world’s ranking of fruit production, followed by grape, orange, mango, and pineapple. This chapter deals with some aspects of banana as a food crop, emphasizing the nutritional value and breeding strategies for the development of biofortified cultivars. Biofortification is a new approach that combines conventional breeding with modern tools of biotechnology with the aim of increasing the micronutrient concentrations in staple crops. Biofortification represents a great opportunity to improve the health status of low-income populations in rural and urban areas of developing countries. Breeding for improved nutritional qualities has primarily focused on the exploration and quantification of natural variability for different micronutrients. Biofortification of banana, especially in terms of provitamin A, Fe, and Zn is possible and can potentially minimize health problems caused by the deficiency of micronutrients in the world’s low income populations.
