A Professor of Food Science and Technology, Olugbenga Ogunmoyela, has advised that the right time for Nigerians to embrace the use of bio-fortified crops by incorporating them into their daily food consumption, is now. The don gave the advice while speaking at a four-day training for selected farmers and food processors, organised by the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) in Ibadan, Oyo State. He said his team had been commissioned by GAIN to train people on safe production and home processing of bio-fortified crops.
“We started with bio-fortified potatoes, maize, cassava, and others some years back, even the farmers do not sufficiently appreciate the nutritional values of these products, and because of that, not many people are patronising these bio-fortified products. There is a need for people to understand how to process them, not just into flour, but into different products. For example, we have always used wheat flour for bread making and in a country where you don’t produce flour, but why are we not promoting bread from our staples as it is done in other countries?”, he added.
The Senior Programme Assistant at Evidence and Action Towards Safe Nutritious Foods Programme (Eatsafe) at GAIN Nigeria, Martin Musa, while speaking at the training said that GAIN is implementing the Strengthening Nutrition in Priority Staples (SNIPS) project with the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) and the Green Innovation Centre for the Agricultural and Food Sector in Nigeria, with support from the German government through the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Musa said the aim of the programme was to ensure food and nutrition security, which is one of the most pressing challenges for sustainable social and economic development in Nigeria, and meeting this need presents an important opportunity for tackling malnutrition.
“The training is on safe and nutritious food production and processing for 50 women and youths, who are basically farmers and food processors that were selected from Afijio, Oyo West, Ido, and Iseyin local governments areas of Oyo State. According to him, the aim is to train them on bio-fortified crops that are very nutritional and fortified with Vitamin A cassava and orange-fleshed sweet potato and value chains. He noted that the participants were introduced to the nutritional staple crops and taught how to produce nutrient-enriched staples products such as garri, tom brown, combo-bites, lafun, pancake mix, and bread, among others.
He added that the training was aimed at scaling the GAIN intervention under the SNIPS project being implemented in the state to ensure the availability of nutritive staple food products to end malnutrition and hidden hunger with healthier diet alternatives for consumption. The Director, of Agricultural Extension Services, Oyo State Ministry of Agriculture, who also doubles as the desk officer for the SNIPS programme in the state, Rasaq Alabi, said that the project started in the year 2021 and that the impact was already being felt by the farming communities, especially in the four local government areas where the project is being implemented in the state. Some of the participants appreciate GAIN for the initiative. For instance, a food processor from Oyo West local government, Umar Samuel, said that the training had contributed greatly to his status and that he would make good use of what he had been taught to advance food production.
