Biofortification: Women trained on production, consumption of Vitamin A cassava, maize

Women play a very vital role in the Agricultural and Economic development of any nation through their contribution in terms of harvesting, processing, storage, and marketing of farm produce and their influence on the allocation of household income.

The majority of people who live in rural Nigeria continue to experience not only hunger but poor health conditions due to malnutrition, which worsened due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the current global food crisis.

It is at this backdrop that HarvestPlus with funding and support from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) is partnering with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Agricultural Development Program (ADP) through the ADP’s Women in Agriculture (WIA) Extension Program to scale the production and consumption of Vitamin A Cassava and Vitamin A Maize to improve household nutrition and income in Niger and Kaduna States.

The WIA disseminates agriculture and nutrition information by stepping down knowledge and skills acquired at trainings to the community and household levels.

In recent times, HarvestPlus is focused on strengthening the knowledge and capacity of WIA officers in selected states with the aim of reaching households with the right information that can make them improve their dietary practices.

These WIA officers will subsequently step down biofortification messages during fortnight trainings using an extension training tool, developed by HarvestPlus to promote effective gender based extension delivery methods.

As part of its objectives, the training aimed at improving the knowledge of women extension agents on biofortification and nutrition so that they will be able to mainstream biofortification into their daily engagements with women in local communities.

In Niger State, the capacity of the women has been built to promote healthier food choices among women using locally available crops especially in rural areas.

Halima Abubakar, Deputy Head (WIA) at the Niger State Agricultural and Mechanization Development Authority (NAMDA) Niger State stated the essence of the training at this point in time when many households are struggling to put foods on the table and women who have the job of preparing household meals look up to women extension agents in their local communities for advice.

Abubakar commended AGRA, HarvestPlus, and other partners for advocating for the eradication of hidden hunger, which is a major malnutrition challenge in the country.

The Niger State Nutrition Officer (SNO) under the State Ministry of Health, Hajiya Asamau Abubakar Mohammed emphasized that addressing malnutrition is by the collective effort of many sectors and that she looks forward to having the WIAs build the capacity of her health team.

In addition, Asamau pointed out the benefits of Vitamin A crops on the entire household specifically for women, lactating mothers and children under the age of five (5 years).

Olatundun Kalejaiye, Nutrition and Post-Harvest officer at HarvestPlus highlighted the aim of the training, which was to empower and equip the WIA women with the knowledge to train other women on how to increase their income, as they process and sell vitamin A maize and cassava foods and also make use of these recipes at the household level to improve on the nutritional quality of their family meals.

She explained that food-based approaches are the best ways to tackle malnutrition and that biofortification (which is a food based strategy) complements other approaches like dietary diversification, supplementation and food fortification.

In Dagodagbe village of Paikoro LGA in Niger State, farmers who are majorly men have been trained on good agronomic practices.

This year, the farmers in Dagodagbe have some harvest from their field which their wives have been using to produce traditional maize based meals.

At a women-led field day in the village, women from neighboring communities were attracted and it served as increased promotion and awareness for biofortified crops and its contribution to the nutrition of women, children and in fact all household members.

An extension agent Abdullahi Umar led the WIA, and other community members, including those from neighbouring villages to the HarvestPlus demonstration site in Dagodnagbe where vitamin A maize and Cassava were cultivated.

The WIA received training on cultural and agronomical practices of these biofortified crops anchored by the Community Based Adversary (CBA).

Mallam Yahaya Umar, a miller at Dagodnagbe village said “the number of villagers that patronizes my milling machine with vitamin A maize tends to be on the increase as the day goes by”.

The Country Manager HarvestPlus Nigeria, Dr. Yusuf Dollah presented a maize planter to the community farmers to ensure adherence to good agricultural practices.

One of the beneficiaries, Hauwa Ibrahim stated in her words “I believe that women need to learn more about the diversification of foods, in order to curb malnutrition.