What Are The Costs Of Fortification?
Fortification programs vary by micronutrient and by delivery mechanism. As well, programs often "piggy back" onto one another, making the incremental cost of adding an additional micronutrient sometimes negligible. For example, a comprehensive wheat fortification program that consists of two slices of bread per day would provide 1/3 of the daily requirements for women of childbearing years. The average cost is only between five and twenty-five cents per person annually.
Commodity |
Incremental cost/metric ton (US$) |
Estimated wholesale cost/metric ton (US $) |
Fortification expense as a % of wholesale cost |
Per capita cost per annum (US$) |
Sugar (Vitamin A) |
$15 |
$1,000 |
1.5 |
0.05-0.45 |
Oil (Vitamin A) |
$5 |
$1,000 |
0.5 |
0.02 |
Maize |
$2.85 |
$350 |
<1 |
0.05-0.45 |
Wheat |
$5.75 |
$600 |
<1 |
0.05-0.25 |
Salt (Iodine) |
$3 |
$50-70 |
5% |
0.01-0.02 |
What does 5 to 25 cents per year mean to an economy? In the U.S. there are 300 million people, so for example, at ten cents per person, per year the entire U.S. population can be fortified for $30 million dollars. A country such as Honduras or Rwanda can be fortified for only $700,000. What else can you buy for that same amount of money?
|
$30,000,000 |
$700,000 |
|
What the U.S. spends on health care every 8 seconds |
What Rwanda spends every 19 hours on health care |
|
The down payment on a $130 million F/A-22 fighter jet |
The windshield of a F/A-22 fighter jet |
|
The amount the US government spends internationally to fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria every 18 hours. |
|
The capital equipment varies greatly depending upon the mill size and the levels of existing fortification.