National nutrition week in Vietnam promotes safe family meals and sustainable production

Health workers instruct mothers to adopt nutrition, safety and malnutrition prevention practices for children in Quy Nhơn City, Central Binh Dinh Province. — Photo syt.binhdinh.gov.vn

From 16-23 October 2016, Vietnam’s Bộ Y Tế (Ministry of Health) celebrated a national nutrition week under the theme “Nutritious and safe family meals in the context of climate change”. As part of the week, a communication campaign focused on raising community awareness on how to eat a healthy, balanced diet and ensure food hygiene and safety. It also promoted a healthy lifestyle through regular physical exercise for obesity prevention and encouraged people to develop family production and promote sustainable production and awareness of environment protection.

Access to essential foods has been always a pressing problem for every household in areas affected by natural disaster and climate change. As a result, children face risks of malnutrition, disease and fatality”

Lê Danh Tuyên, Director, National Institute of Nutrition and SUN Government Focal Point

The campaign was organised by the National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) to coincide with World Food Day and events were organised with the agricultural sector to provide guidelines on proper cultivation techniques for farmers and to develop VAC (garden-pond-livestock pen) integrated farming systems, a Vietnamese approach to household production of safe and nutritious food. Localities were asked to care for people, especially those in remote and natural disaster hit areas, helping them produce nutritious food to improve their daily meals and living conditions.

Experts from the NIN said an unbalanced diet was among the top causes of malnutrition in the country. In 2015, 24.6 per cent of the country’s children under five were underweight, down 0.3 per cent compared with 2014, while the rate of stunted growth was 14.1 per cent, down 0.4 per cent compared with the previous year.

Learn more about the week at Vietnam news

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Lê Quốc Doanh (left) introduces some food to FAO guests, at an event held in southern Ninh Thuận Province on Friday to mark World Food Day in Việt Nam. — Photo nongnghiep.vn

World Food Day event

On 16 October 2016, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) in Viet Nam celebrated the 36th World Food Day in the southern Ninh Thuận Province with a vow to take numerous measure to ensure food secuity. The event themed “Climate is changing, food and agriculture must too” stressed the urgent issue of climate change which poses a significant challenge to food security and impacts the livelihoods of millions of people.

To scale up the climate smart agriculture models, farming households – the smallest production unit should be empowered to adapt to local conditions; rural women and gender equality in agriculture should be focused on. This will contribute to the sustainable reduction of poverty, food security, political stability and socio-economic development,”

Lê Quốc Doanh, Deputy Minister, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development

After the ceremony, the FAO and MARD delegations visited the Demonstration on Integrated Crop Management Cultivation for Fresh Cooking Hybrid Maize Crop on Paddy Land in Thuận Bắc District, Ninh Thuận Province. This is a site of a FAO technical assistance project funded by the joint Government and UN programme on integrated nutrition and food security.

Learn more about this event at Vietnam news