Estimates of Dietary Mineral Micronutrient Supply from Staple Cereals in Ethiopia at a District Level.

Recent surveys have revealed substantial spatial variation in the micronutrient composition of cereals in Ethiopia, where a single national micronutrient concentration values for cereal grains are of limited use for estimating typical micronutrient intakes. We estimated the district-level dietary mineral supply of staple cereals, combining district-level cereal production and crop mineral composition data, assuming cereal consumption of 300 g capita -1 day -1 proportional to district-level production quantity of each cereal. We considered Barley ( Hordeum vulgare L.), maize ( Zea mays L.), sorghum ( Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench), teff ( Eragrostis tef (Zuccagni) Trotter), and wheat ( Triticum aestivum L.) consumption representing 93.5% of the total cereal production in the three major agrarian regions. On average, grain cereals can supply 146, 23, and 7.1 mg capita -1 day -1 of Ca, Fe, and Zn, respectively. In addition, the Se supply was 25 µg capita -1 day -1 . Even at district-level, cereals differ by their mineral composition, causing a wide range of variation in their contribution to the daily dietary requirements, i.e., for an adult woman: 1-48% of Ca, 34-724% of Fe, 17-191% of Se, and 48-95% of Zn. There was considerable variability in the dietary supply of Ca, Fe, Se, and Zn from staple cereals between districts in Ethiopia.