The UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development puts great emphasis on global hunger; its SDG2 aims to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. In spite of progress made over the last two decades, 815 million people still suffer from chronic hunger. Thus, fight against hunger requires continued and focused efforts to make global food production systems more sustainable and agriculture systems more resilient. Lack of essential vitamins and minerals in a person’s diet is referred to as a micronutrient deficiency. This condition affects more than two billion people globally, and can contribute to poor cognitive development, increased risk of infections, and complications during pregnancy and childbirth. Micronutrient deficiencies have been traditionally addressed by supplementation and food fortification. However, both of these methods possess high cost/benefit ratios. In addition, supplementation is a resource-intensive approach and does not address the cause of the problem – dietary inadequacy. A major disadvantage of food fortification (micronutrients are added to commonly consumed foods at the processing stage) is that some of the poorest families may not have access to commercially processed foods. Scientists have developed an alternative approach – to add micronutrients at the agricultural production stage by cross-breeding standard varieties with their wild relatives, over several generations. This approach, known as biofortification, uses conventional plant breeding techniques to enhance the micronutrient concentration of staple crops. This innovative strategy was first developed in the 1990s, and is now pioneered by an organisation called HarvestPlus, which is supported by the UK Department for International Development. Biofortified crops include: vitamin A maize, vitamin A cassava, vitamin A sweet potato, iron beans, iron pearl millet, zinc rice and zinc wheat. These crops have been introduced into many countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Scientists of the University of Central Lancashire, in partnership with international collaborators, are currently investigating the impact of biofortified zinc wheat in a rural community in northwest Pakistan – where over 40% of women are zinc deficient. Although biofortification is a partial solution, which must go hand in hand with efforts to reduce poverty, food insecurity, disease, poor sanitation, social and gender inequality, it has a great potential to contribute to the eradication of micronutrient deficiencies.