By Aluta News
A Swiss based foundation, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, (GAIN) has launched an agribusiness innovation clinic in Benue to improve food and nutrition security in staple foods.
The launch which held on Tuesday in Makurdi was themed “Strengthening Nutrition in Priority Staples (SNIPS)”.
Speaking at the event, the SNIPS Project Manager, Mrs Mercy Olorunfemi said the main goal of the strengthening nutrition project was to increase consumption of nutritious foods by smallholder farmers, their families and the wider population.
According to Olorunfemi, “the SNIPS project will also strengthen casava, maize, rice and Orange Fleshed Sweet Potato (OFSP) value chain in Nigeria which provides more safe and nutritious foods to consumers.
“The project will also increase use of nutritious varieties of the target staples in processed foods.
“GAIN will through the project also improve productivity and efficiency of farmers and other businesses to improve the production of nutritious foods in the casava, maize, rice and OFSP value chains”.
She disclosed that to achieve the expected outcomes from the SNIPS project, GAIN had trained over 500 farmers, processors and aggregators and empowered them by supplying inputs such as Vitamin A cassava cuttings, OFSP vines, Organic and Foliar fertilizers.
Olorunfemi also said about 110 farmers have been given herbicides in four local government areas of Benue to increase the production of nutritious varieties of the target staples.
In his keynote address, the Benue Commissioner for Agriculture and Natural Resources, Mr Kester Kyenge commended GAIN for its efforts to ensure food and nutrition security in the state.
Kyenge who was represented by Mr Raphael Dau, said ensuring food and nutrition security is one of the most pressing challenges for sustainable social and economic development in Nigeria.
He therefore, promised that the state government would partner with GAIN by providing enabling environment for the project to succeed for the benefit of Benue people.
In an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the National Coordinator for Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Business Network, Nigeria, Mrs Chinwe Arowolo said that GAIN wants to ensure that all actors in the target food value chain play significant roles in ensuring that the supply for safe and nutritious foods meet demand and demand also meet supply.
Arowolo said that in five years, SNIPS project would have achieved improved diets among families in rice and maize value chains which contributes to improved health and productivity of farmers and workers.
Mr Kedono Momoh, the Founder of Protofos Farms, Nigeria advised farmers not to focus only on safe food but also on its nutrition contents if nutrition safety must be achieved.
“Farmers should be mindful of the fact that food can be safe and not nutritious so they should ensure that what they produce is safe and nutritious for the benefit of the consumers”, he said.
Mr Olu Awolowo, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Distrifoods, Nigeria said manufacturing of safe and nutritious foods is everyone’s business, adding that food and nutrition security is important for national productivity.
“The more safe and nutritious foods we have, the lesser the population of those that will fall sick and that means people can go to work and be more productive”, he explained.