Mainstreaming of nutrition in Nigeria’s agriculture activities announced at a nutritious food fair

From 4 to 5 November, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) hosted a nutritious food fair organised by HarvestPlus to showcase various types of nutritious products. The event was held on the IITA campus and welcomed over 1,500 guests including farmers, students, food processors, research institutes, civil society groups, entertainers, top government officials and scientists from within and around Nigeria.

A speech from Vice President Yemi Osinbajo given by his representative Sunday Echono, Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, shared that the government recognises the importance of nutrition in healthy living and that the Federal Government of Nigeria has plans to build nutrition into its mainstream activities.

The Permanent Secretary also revealed government plan to review and prioritise the strategic plan for Transformative Partnership for High Energy Nutritious Food for Africa, saying the plan would ensure the sustainable consumption of high energy nutritious food to address a range of nutrition needs in Nigeria and Africa.

The Permanent Secretary stated that the present Administration views bio-fortification as complementary to dietary enrichment and has therefore embraced a broad and comprehensive food systems approach to address malnutrition.

“We easily visualize how food fortification fits into broader agribusiness model to make nutritious food available, accessible and affordable to enable us provide diverse foods and make more foods more nutritious” – Sunday Echono, Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on behalf of Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo.

The Permanent Secretary also highlighted the importance of optimising industry compliance to expected food fortification standards and emphasized the need to work with research institutions like IITA and the Nutritional Root Crops Research Institute to scale up research. According to him, poor eating habits posed significant barriers to improving nutrition and therefore pledged the commitment of government to working with partners to build knowledge, provide accurate information, build evidence based key initiatives, educate and drive behavioural change for improved nutrition.

The Nigeria Strategy Support Program (NSSP) was present at the fair with an exhibition of recent International Food Policy institute (IFPRI) and NSSP publications to inform participants of IFPRI’s work globally and NSSP’s work in Nigeria. NSSP is a medium for circulating relevant information to Nigeria’s agriculture policy and strategy development.

Learn more about the event: AllAfrica

Learn more about: The Nigeria Strategy Support Program, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture and HarvestPlus