Food insecurity and malnutrition in developing countries has become an issue of global concern. Recent report from the World Bank indicate nearly two billion people suffer from iron deficiency, while one-quarter of the world’s people are at risk of insufficient dietary zinc or vitamin A.
In Nigeria today, poor families are finding it difficult to access nutritious foods and majority of Nigerian children under five are grossly malnourished. It is on record that malnutrition is wiping out children under the age of five, especially in northern part of the country.
To combat this menace, policymakers have adopted biofortified crops as one element of a nutrient-sensitive national agricultural research and investment strategy.
Even the President of the African Development Bank and former Nigerian Minister for Agriculture, Akinwumi Adesina, recently called for an end to malnutrition in Africa, saying that the continent has all it needs to win in agriculture.
As part of efforts to promote nutrition in Nigeria, HarvestPlus has developed new nutritious varieties of staple food crops that provide higher amounts of vitamin A, iron and zinc. These crops include vitamin A cassava, orange, sweet potato and maize; iron beans and pearl millet; and zinc rice and wheat.
These crops which have been conventionally bred, are high yielding, and resistant to threats of pests, diseases, heat and drought. Already, vitamin A cassava has been processed into vitamin A garri, fufu, flour, cakes and others.
Speaking at the Bio-monthly Business Forum to educate agriculture stakeholders, including cassava farmers, processors and poultry feed investors on the benefits of vitamin A cassava value chain in Ibadan, HarvestPlus Country Manager, Nigeria, Paul Ilona, said Nigeria has one of the worst food cultures in the world, which is usually carbohydrate based. He said Nigeria’s food culture has not changed but people change their mentality about food.
According to him, HarvestPlus has played a key role in developing and distributing biofortified crops and in educating a range of stakeholders about the advantages of crops that are higher in zinc, iron and vitamin A.
Said he: “We are working with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and Federal Ministry of Health to create awareness for people to know about the importance of biofortified foods. We want to build a sustainable more nutritious food; we have the first boifortified restaurant in Nigeria where only the biofortified foods are sold.”
He said vitamin A garri has come to stay in Nigeria, that those who are consuming it are not complaining but instead they are giving testimonies, adding that now vitamin A maize is on board.
He stated: “Our works on vitamin A plantains and bananas are going on now and with the release of iron sorghum and our effort now is to introduce high zinc rice, which will be additional to food people consume in Nigeria. We welcome partnership from everyone but our mission at HarvestPlus is that every Nigerian household has access to more nutritious foods.”
He said HarvestPlus has made great impact on nutrition across the country, saying that the organisation would carry out impact studies in its model villages, where the organisation have the full packages from seed production to tuber production, processing, marketing and consumption.
He hinted that it is coming to the stage where every Nigerian would ask very simple question in the market about nutritious foods before they make their choice, adding that the largest nutritious traditional food in Africa is vitamin A cassava and fufu.
Speaking on empowerment, he said; “we are highly youth focused and over 60 per cent of our beneficiaries of enterprise development has been youth such as young school leavers, young graduates who can pick up technology and support them technically and link them up to the market.
“We are producing the next farm generation managers at the college. You see how the press centre is lead to a cluster of farms. With capacity building, we are getting everybody to know that agriculture is a business but we are going the extra miles to make that business not too difficult for them to understand. “
The task of plant breeders attempting to biofortify staple food crops is to increase the micronutrient level in the edible product of a staple food crop to have measurable impact on improving the nutritional health of individuals at high risk of developing micronutrient malnutrition.