Food systems should focus more on addressing malnutrition, says HarvestPlus

HarvestPlus Nigeria has called for more focus to be centred on addressing malnutrition through food system instead of the usual focus on addressing hunger.

Dr. Yusuf Dollah, the Country Director, HarvestPlus Nigeria said this in Kano State while unveiling two iron-rich pearl millets which was produced in partnership International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and the Lake Chad Research Institute (LCRI).

Dr Dollah noted that HarvestPlus is committed to championing food system transformation through improving nutrition and public health, developing and promoting biofortified food crops that are rich in vitamins and minerals.

He noted that in Nigeria, HarvestPlus works with public, private, and national partners to promote the adoption and scaling of new nutritious crops and foods to help bring upon a rapid and nutritious transformation of the Nigerian food system.

With the collaboration, he said HarvestPlus has been able to deliver to Nigerian consumers, vitamin A cassava, and vitamin A maize, and work is progressing at the moment on the development of zinc rice.

“Today, we are here to inform the world of yet another milestone in ensuring Nigerians have access to these nutritious foods through a collaborative effort between HarvestPlus, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and the Lake Chad Research Institute (LCRI) have produced two iron-rich varieties (known as jirani and chakti), becoming the first biofortified varieties of pearl millets to be released in Africa.

“This initiative builds on scaling efforts in India, where the number of farming households growing iron pearl millet has jumped 395 percent since 2021″, he said.

Furthermore, Dollah stated that Nigeria is well placed to contribute its quota in line with the UN declaration of 2023 as the international year of the millets with the release of the varieties.

Consequently, he said smallholder farmers can now access naturally nutritious, climate-smart varieties of iron pearl millet to assist in addressing their needs and improve their productivity and household nutrition in the face of global shocks.

He said climate volatility in northern Nigeria has contributed to decreased crop yields, decreased nutrients in some of the staples, increased food prices, and heightened food insecurity worsening malnutrition.

”Smallholder farmers are also looking for opportunities to bridge production yield gaps brought about by climatic stress through improved agricultural technologies like nutrient-enriched seeds.

“The iron pearl millet combines higher iron content with other enhanced and preferred farmer traits including higher yield, extra-early maturity, and drought tolerance to provide more nutrition and food security to rural farming communities in arid and drought-prone regions.

“As an affordable dietary source of iron in the region, iron-enriched varieties of pearl millet like chakti and jirani can improve nutrition for millions of farming households providing up to 80 percent of daily iron needs when eaten regularly”, Dollah added.