Experts in the agricultural sector on Monday met to assess Nigeria’s budgetary allocation to seed production, especially in the area of the development of biofortified crops to combat malnutrition which is more prevalent in children.
Speaking during the Biofortification policy roundtable, the Country Manager of Harvest Plus, Yusuf Dollah Fu’ad said Biofortification is a process where we increase the micronutrients in vitamin levels in staple crops through a conventional breeding technique.
He said Harvest Plus tries to complement existing nutrition initiatives but using a food-based approach through the process of biofortification.
He said biofortification has been in Nigeria for almost 10 years, and the roundtable aims to confer most especially with the policymakers, to try and see budgetary allocation to seed production in the past three years.
He said the reason why they want to see the budgetary allocation to seed production is to know if it is growing or is it shrinking. “If it is growing, then we ask the government to do more because we need to create access so that every man, woman and child in the community should also be able to have access.
“The staple crops that we have around we should be able to increase the micronutrients vitamin level in it, so that as we grow it in our farms and consume, we have access to these essential micronutrients and vitamins that our body requires for us to live a healthy life.
“For Nigeria, we have nutritional challenges, during the course of the presentation, you could see the statistics, which it’s not palatable at all, there have been existing initiatives like the aura drops, we also have the large-scale food fortification, where today if you buy a pack of sugar, you’ll see the sign of the eye and the tie, which means it has fortified.
“We are also coming in from the agricultural sector with more nutritious crops so that as we grow them and consume, our people will have access. Now you see the prevalence is more in the rural areas, where some of the reasons they reeled out include purchasing power.
“Now for some of these seeds if farmers have access it just for them to grow in their farms and consume, they don’t need money to have access, and we have some of the seeds that are open-pollinated varieties, in which in most cases, some of the farmers can recycle, they can also do what they call, Farmer to Farmer dissemination of seeds, but again, we advise, every season try and get new seeds, so, that’s there’ll be purity,” he stated.
He said currently Nigeria has some biofortified crops which include vitamin A-enriched potato, Vitamin A-enriched cassava, Vitamin A-enriched maize.
“We just released iron and zinc-enriched millet, at the moment we’re working on the zinc rice”, he added.
The Head of National Policy, Harvest Plus, Washington DC, Rewa Misra said the aim of introducing biofortified crops is to eradicate hidden hunger.
“We want to eradicate hidden hunger, so we want that for women, men, children who have been suffering from micronutrient deficiencies for years, that these deficiencies should finally be eliminated and as a part of their daily diets, rather than through any special medication, that kids should be able to defeat diseases like anaemia, stunting and also morbidity”, she said.
She said the Nigerian Government and other governments have been very positive on biofortification, and there has been increased recognition by policymakers that biofortification is an important solution.
“So thinking about this from the policymaker’s perspective, there’s definitely a recognition. The big question now becomes how to convert that recognition into direct policy mechanisms, budget allocation, and the right level of spending.
“I think the easiest way is to start to focus on where the deficiencies are highest, as has been pointed out by others such as in rural areas, and then start to allocate resources towards scaling up biofortified crops”, she added.
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