Statistics have shown that malnutrition is on the increase in the country. Wasting has increased from 24.2 per cent to 31.5 percent while stunting has gone up from 34.8 percent to 43.6 percent.
Chief of UNICEF Field Office, Philomena Irene made this known in Gombe during the opening of a two-day capacity development programme for Universal Health Coverage by UNICEF.
The nutrition specialist, who relied on figures released by the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey report, said prevalence appears worse in the northern part of the country.
She said half of all deaths among children in the country today are related to nutrition while millions of young children are not reaching their full potentials because of inadequate nutrition, lack of early stimulation, and learning and exposure to stress.
“Investment in nutrition which is cost effective will help reverse these trends as well as boost our GDP as a country. The World Bank in its 2017 report revealed that for every N1,000 invested on nutrition will yield N16,000 in return; showing that nutrition is for development and therefore any resources invested in it is not a loss, but a boost for the economy,” Irene stated.
She, therefore, advocated for investment in the physical, mental, and emotional development of children which is critical for the future productivity of individuals and the economic competitiveness of the state.
Irene said the crucial role of legislators in appropriation, legislation, accountability, representation and oversight towards improving maternal and child health underscored the meeting with them.
She, therefore, appealed to them to work towards ensuring adequate provision of funds as they prepare the 2018 budget as well as push for the release and implementation of the budget allocated for health and nutrition in 2017.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Country Representative, Mr. Suffyan Koroma has advised the Federal Government to increase its efforts on sufficient food production and addressing food nutrition challenges in the country.
Koroma made the call at the stakeholders meeting on presentation of results of Cadre Harmonise (CH) Analysis on Food and Nutrition Insecurity in Nigeria.
The new report was unveiled before Commissioners for Health and Agriculture from 17 States across the country, including the Federal Capital territory (FCT), yesterday in Abuja.
The states are Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina, Kano, Jigawa, Adamawa, Yobe, Borno, Kaduna, Kebbi, Niger, Benue, Taraba, Bauchi, Gombe and Plateau.
Other stakeholders such as local and international Non-Governmental Organisations were as well present at the discussion which preceded official unveiling of the document.
Koroma, who was represented by David Patrick, said efforts were ongoing to assist the vulnerable states with supports from other development partners such as Action Against Hunger, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), World Food Programme (WFP) among others.
The CH report, earlier this year stated that 7 million people in the 16 northern states were severely vulnerable to hunger if quick actions were not taken.
“The essence of this meeting is to gather all stakeholders to discuss on the cadre harmonise report and information at their disposal on food and nutrition. Outcome of the CH will later be communicated to headquarters of various agencies to needed programmes and intervention.
“There is need for the government to increase efforts on addressing food security and nutrition. There is also need to build capacity of all stakeholders and strengthen food security and nutrition in the country,” he said.
Koroma further described the CH as a food security tool adopted by the federal government to analysis food and nutrition insecurity findings in the country.
Earlier, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Bukar Hassan, said the analysis became imperative in order to determine reliability of data in the 16 States before final presentation to the public.
According to him, the result will assist government in planning effectively, especially in the area of policy formulations targeted to assist poor rural households in the country.
“It is a tool to analyse food security and poverty in the country,” he added.
Hassan, who was represented by Director of Planning, Policy and Coordination, Alhaji Auwal Maidabinu reassured support of the federal government to jointly realizing food security in Nigeria.
The Country Director, World Food Programme, Martha Karlard, described the exercise as impressive stressing that it immensely helped in the study of about 22, 000 households in the north east.
She lauded the federal government and States for timely delivery of food items to the victims of insecurity in the region.
A child’s nutrition and safety, especially in school, should never be compromised, the Founder/Chairman of Avi Cenna International School, Ikeja, Lagos, Mr. Darwish Foudeh,, has said.
He spoke when a safety compliance certificate was conferred on the school by the Lagos State Safety Commission Director-General, Hon. Hakeem Dickson, and Principal Consultant of InSiGHt, Dr. Nnenna Mba-Oduwusi.
This is in recognition of the merit of a Star-Two (on a 3-star ranking) safety compliance standard of the Commission and a level three (of a five-tier ranking) of SafeZoneTM obtained by the school.
Foudeh said good nutrition plays a huge role in child’s optimal development. Explainng this, he said: “Nutrition is important. Eating a balanced diet is vital for good health and wellbeing. Food provides our bodies with the energy, protein, essential fats, vitamins and minerals to live, grow and function properly. We need a wide variety of different foods to provide the right amounts of nutrients for good health and that are why the school go extra mile in providing quality food to our pupils and students.”
He added that in order for children to grow properly, they must eat a well-balanced diet. “A well-balanced diet incorporates all of the food groups represented in the food guide pyramid. Having a healthy diet and focusing on nutrition are some of the simplest and most important ways to prevent the onset of disease. Healthy eating can help prevent many chronic diseases. These include obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, and type 2-diabetes. And that dovetailed into the high level of safety as observed in the school. There are no sharp edges but blunt or round poles, including the staircases.”
The School Safety project is a programme embarked by the Lagos State Safety Commission is geared towards ensuring the safety of every child and student in Lagos State. One major component of the project involves an assessment of the systems that educational institutions have in place to ensure that risks to the safety and health of pupils, staff and parents are as minimal as possible.
The assessment process provides a day of practical advice and guidance from the safety audit team. Although, some schools regularly self-assess and undertake regular safety inspections, but an annual audit ensures that the schools’ health and safety practices are as robust as possible and also an essential requirement for safety certification by the Lagos State Safety Commission.
InSiGHt health consulting Ltd is an accredited Safety Agent for the Lagos State School Safety Project. In collaboration with the Royal Society of the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) InSiGHt implements SafeZone, which is an accreditation system that provides a vehicle for assessing the level of compliance of health and safety standards in schools? InSiGHt Health has exclusivity with ROSPA for school safety audits in Nigeria.
The recognition of safety compliance of schools by the Lagos State Safety Commission continues and would get to all the schools that have achieved a feat in making safety a priority in their schools.
Dr. Mba-Oduwusi said: “We congratulate Avi Cenna International School for demonstrating such interest and zeal to ensuring safety in the institution; we are pleased to recognise their achievements as a level 3 school. We encourage other schools to follow the same path.’’
The Federal Ministry of Health, along with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and RTI International co-convened a nutrition data stakeholders workshop last week in Abuja. Government and other stakeholders are now aligned to conduct a national food consumption and nutrition survey and address a number of other related food security, health and nutrition related data issues. David Lawal reports
Ms. Mary Arimond, Senior Technical Advisor, Center for Dietary Intake Assessment at the Washington, DC office of FHI 360, looked at her audience comprising of nutrition experts from various federal ministries, agencies and the academia and asked what seemed a random question.
“What did I eat yesterday, how much of each food and drink, how much milk was in my tea? How about the snacks, what was in that street food?”
It was more than a random question, but one which is usually taken for granted by many Nigerians. According to Ms. Arimond, lack of information on diets means that information for food and nutrition policy is lacking. “An individual dietary intake survey is important because Nigeria currently has a triple burden of malnutrition,” she said.
The scientist had more worrisome data, “Nigeria is facing malnutrition problems at both ends of the spectrum. You still struggle with undernutrition and children who are not growing well. One in three children is stunted, which means they have grown very poorly and they are affected in other ways. This is something that comes at great cost not only to the child and their family but also to your country.
Ms. Mary Arimond, Senior Technical Advisor, Center for Dietary Intake Assessment
“At the other end of the spectrum, one in three adults is overweight or obese in Nigeria, which brings with it the risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension. These are already growing in Nigeria and if it follows the pathway of many countries, these problems will grow rapidly and become a great cost to your health system and to your country,” she added.
A grim statistic
Just about a week before the conference on Nutrition Data organized by the Federal Ministry of Health in conjunction with the BMGF, a major partner in nutrition, the Minister of Health, Professor. Isaac Adewole had given a startling and worrisome outlook of Nigeria’s position on nutrition.
At the high level consultative meeting with states on accelerating nutrition results in states (ARIN), the minister shared one of his worries and presented plans to address it. The nutrition problem in Nigeria he said has improved in the last 10 years, but the current indices “remains one of the worst in the world.”
“With a stunting rate of 31.5% in 2015, which translates to about 11 million children, Nigeria has the highest number of stunted children under age five in sub-Saharan Africa, and the second highest in the world. Similarly, about 7.2% are wasted, that is acutely malnourished and 18.6% are underweight.
“It is also a well-established fact that, as an underlying cause of death, malnutrition accounts for more than 50% of under 5 mortality in Nigeria.
“Every single day, Nigeria loses about 2,300 children under-five year of age and malnutrition accounts for more than half of these deaths. It is therefore obvious that we cannot seriously think about reducing under five mortalities without addressing malnutrition.”
But the death and destruction of children associated with nutrition problems are not the only issues the Nigerian government has to worry about, there are severe economic consequences too.
“There are massive economic and social consequences to the high rates of undernutrition in Nigeria. Billions in GDP are lost each year due to the pernicious cycle of undernutrition. Annually, Nigeria loses over US$1.5 billion in GDP to vitamin and mineral deficiencies.
“Analysis by the Micronutrient Initiative shows that unless we take effective action to prevent and control Vitamin A Deficiency, over 80,000 Nigerian children will die annually,” Adewole said.
Finding nutrition data
The Nigeria nutrition data landscape has been a motely of activities and policy formulations which impacts or attempts to have direct bearings on health and nutrition in the country. Some of these policies include: National Health Act of 2014, National Strategic Health Development Plan 2010–2015, National Health Policy 2016, National Policy on Food and Nutrition in Nigeria 2016, National Strategic Plan of Action for Nutrition 2014–2019.
Others include: National Policy on Infant and Young Child Feeding in Nigeria 2010, National Health Information and Communication Technology Strategic Framework 2015–2020, National Agriculture and Food Security Strategy 2010–2020, The Agriculture Promotion Policy 2016–2020, Agricultural Sector Food Security and Nutrition Strategy 2016–2025 and Monitoring and Evaluation Plan for the Orphans and Vulnerable Children Response in Nigeria.
Many of these policies describe the describe the need for a better functioning health information system because the government relies on this system together with national surveys for tracking the implementation of nutrition-related programs and making decisions about programming.
Nigeria’s many policies on health and nutrition like the National Health Policy 2016, noted gaps in capacity for nutrition data collection, analysis, and interpretation; use of data for decision-making; coordination among government ministries and between government and Nigeria Nutrition Data Landscaping.
The policies acknowledged that there are parallel data systems and a lack of standard data collection tools. They described the need for a nutrition information system which is yet to be implemented.
A survey conducted by the US based Research Triangle Institute(RTI), which was released in July 2017 revealed the several gaps in the national nutrition survey and underscores the need for a government led leadership in nutrition data collection. The report also discovered that bilateral and multilateral donors like the United States Aid (USAID), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), World Bank (WB) Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) are the funders for nutrition and agriculture related surveys in Nigeria.
However, these organizations do not share monthly monitoring data with government even though they hold dissemination meetings to keep government informed of their activities.
The RTI report also recommended the need for Nigeria’s nutrition data to be put together in one place which will enable easy access for those in need of it for policies and programming.
RTI: “Through our review of Nigeria’s nutrition data landscape, we identified gaps that affect the components of the nutrition data value chain and the chain overall. Some state-level and nongovernmental stakeholders described a lack of state- and country-led governance and ownership of nutrition data. To date, funding for nutrition activities and data in the country has come almost exclusively from donors and development partners.
“Inadequate financing from the government for nutrition and health information systems and ineffective coordination mechanisms at the federal, state, and community levels are hampering progress toward achieving a more robust and cohesive nutrition data landscape.
“Limited in-country capacity for data collection, management, analysis, and use is also a contributing factor. Although technologies show promise for improving the nutrition data landscape in Nigeria, challenges related to training people on how to use the technologies and interoperability of systems remain. Quality assurance of data and feedback loops appear to be missing links in the country’s data value chain,” the report said.
A nutrition data workshop
To address the imbalances and chart a way forward, the Federal Ministry of Health(FMoH) organized a two-day Nigeria Nutrition Data Stakeholders Workshop in Abuja bringing together all the major stakeholders, technical partners both in country and foreign experts for a major brainstorming.
According to Dr. Chris Isokpunwu, head of Nutrition at the FMoH the meeting “was to analyze the data situation in Nigeria and access the data landscape.”
He said: “There was an exercise that was conducted by RTI and they have presented to us their findings, moving forward what are the data needs, we need urgently the National Food Consumption and Nutrition Survey and we also need to have the Nutrition Surveillance System that will give us real time data on nutrition.
Dr. Chris Isokpunwu, head of Nutrition at the FMoH
“Data is necessary in any program, it helps in advocacy, it informs programming, it helps you design how you want the program to be done and also access the progress of your program. Data also gives and overview of what the problem is and be able to plan how to address it.”
The workshop interrogated various views on nutrition data gathering and examined current policies regarding nutrition in Nigeria, the gaps and how to fill it. Arimond said dietary survey is important in Nigeria and the consequences of neglects on future generations are grave, she also emphasized the that the quality and quantity of food matters.
“We are looking at the quality of the food consumed and when the quality is good, it tends to be too much in quantity,” she said.
Perhaps one of the revelations of the workshop was the fact that nothing much has been done after the first National Food Consumption and Nutrition Survey in 2001. In her presentation, Dr. Busie Maziya-Dixon a senior scientist at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Ibadan who led the exercise said the survey was data base and it tested 422 Nigerian recipes.
However, even though the data from the survey has been computed, it is yet to be published, this situation also underscores the need for the Nigerian government to take ownership of nutrition data generation.
Dr. Emmanuel Meribole , head Monitoring & Evaluation, Department of Planning, Research and Statistics at the FMoH promised that the ministry is putting its house in order.
“In terms of data quality, we are revamping the system, we are reviewing the register, we want to train the frontline workers who are responsible for data collection, the data check system is being put in place to ensure quality data, we are strengthening the system.
“We are building a website to accommodate all the data that have been collected, we are training people even up to the local government on how to analyze the data,” he assured.
For Dr. Isokpunwu, there is urgent need to set the process in motion to begin the implementation of the recommendations. “I can tell you we are making progress, although it is small but it is an improvement. In 2013, the stunting rate was 33 percent, we want to see what it is now. The last micronutrient survey was done in 2003, a lot of intervention like, Vitamin A supplementation, mandatory food fortification, iron and folic acid supplementation, deworming programme but today where are we?
“When we conduct the National Food and Nutrition Survey we will be able to answer that question, besides that, this survey will help us understand, who is eating what, where is the food, are we eating enough calories, we will be able to identify the eating pattern of our people with a view to intervening in the situation,” he said.
The workshop has set in motion the process for the conduct of the survey, a technical and steering committee have been set up with the mandate to liaise with every stakeholder and facilitate the conduct of the survey.
A profitable return
Everyone agreed on the importance of nutrition data and its enormous health benefits, but Minister of Health Prof. Adewole is seeing the economic benefits as well. “Evidence is there to show that investing in nutrition yields high returns. One dollar invested in interventions targeting stunting would bring about 10 dollars in economic benefits; one dollar invested in anemia prevention can yield up to 12 dollars, and one dollar invested in improving exclusive breastfeeding can yield as much as 35 dollars.
“These global estimates are confirmed by recent country-specific analyses conducted by the World Bank for the Government of Nigeria which show that scaling up the package of high-impact nutrition interventions in Nigeria would generate about US$ 2.6 billion in economic benefits,” he said.
To shore up nutritional health, an organisation, Post-harvest Loss Alliance for Nutrition (PLAN) trains farmers, food processors, transporters and other stakeholders in handling and preserving fruits and vegetables
The organisation focuses on one of the most important areas of life: nutritional health, an area often mismanaged. Much as humans need fresh fruits and vegetables to maintain good health, much of them are carelessly handled and consequently lost, thus denying consumers sorely needed nutrition. That was why the Post-harvest Loss Alliance for Nutrition or PLAN organised a workshop in Kaduna to enhance the capacity of farmers, wholesalers, aggregators, transporters and processors. The workshop focused on food safety and hygiene for post-harvest handling of fresh fruits and vegetables. PLAN is supported by the Rockefeller Foundation.
Millions worldwide do not consume enough micronutrients needed for growth and development, especially in Africa. Women and children are the most vulnerable with telling effects on their vitamins and minerals status. This was revealed at the three-day training workshop.
The participants observed that people suffering from malnutrition should have access to a diverse diet which includes rich fresh fruits and vegetables. But unfortunately, over 50 percent of fresh fruits and vegetables do not get to consumers in need, a development which is blamed on losses taking place after the produce leaves the farm.
This scenario essentially prompted the training workshop titled “Food Safety & GAPS For Fresh Fruits and Vegetables”. The capacity building workshop was organised by Postharvest Loss Alliance for Nutrition (PLAN). The focus was on food safety and hygiene for postharvest handling of fresh fruits and vegetables. It is supported by Rockefeller Foundation, Yield-wise Program-Pyxera Global and GEMS4-UKAID. It is aimed at sensitisation and capacity building of farmers, wholesalers, aggregators, transporters and processors on the importance of adhering to food safety practices.
According to Dr. Augustine Okoruwa, the Senior Project Manager PLAN, who was represented by Ayodele Tella, PLAN’s Senior Associate Agriculture and Nutrition Programme, Kaduna was selected as one of the states for the training episodes because in terms of production it is at the centre of fruits and vegetable production in Northern Nigeria. Consequently, participants who are mainly representatives of organised private sector were drawn from states in the North with representatives of government too in attendance from Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Standards Organisation of Nigeria.
The training was designed to provide:
Participants’ increased awareness regarding food safety & hygiene standards and requirements in the postharvest handling fresh fruits and vegetables to reduce the losses that occur at the various stages of the supply chain.
Imbue participants with greater confidence in handling fruits and vegetables using best practices to prevent physical, chemical or biological contaminations of produce which could cause postharvest losses and waste.
Equip participants with up to date knowledge on causes of postharvest losses and how to mitigate these losses
Provide participants with clarity on the required standards of handling, storage and packaging of fruits and vegetables and instill the ability to consistently work according to agreed standards and control guidelines designed internally such as process SOPs and external guidelines such as those available by standards organisation to minimise losses during postharvest handling.
Obasi Sunday, a participant from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in his reaction to the training package, noting that whilethe training workshop was timely, he stressing that “Nigerian Agriculture at this stage has a lot of problems. We discovered that our products cannot compete effectively in international markets. Most of our products are being rejected based on quality assurance and standard. I think it is a welcome development for PLAN to have thought it wise to organise this kind of programme. Within the period we have been able to identify areas of GAPs which has to do with quality assurance, knowing that quality starts from the farm ranging from production, processing to storage before it gets to the end user that being consumer.
“Government intervention can come in many areas such as organizing training programmes for capacity building of farmers on food handling; control of agro-chemicals; providing loans via Bank of Agriculture; provide policies on transportation of fresh produce and intervention in cold chain facilities to reduce postharvest losses which are estimated at between 40 to 50 percent nationwide.
”Much as we talk of standard with a view to competing at international markets, we ourselves need to eat quality produce from the farm and that is why the government needs to address the issue of quality assurance right from the farm for hygiene and safety reasons.”
Obasi Sunday also disclosed that “the Bank of Agric. is being re-engineered to address the issue of giving loans to farmers at a considerable bank rate to assist their production and other related services. However, he is of the opinion that farmers themselves should be able to produce bankable feasibility studies to enable them access loans.
“Preservation which accounts for major losses that farmers of perishable products like tomatoes, vegetables etc suffer most, should not be left for government alone; private sectors should take the lead by forming cooperative societies through which the farmers will reach out to the government and they would be listened and attended to.
“I want to assure you that the ministry is aware of the plight of Nigerian farmers and it will be addressing the issues in time to come. But currently, it is the general opinion that private sectors should be in their various cooperatives to take a lead instead of waiting for government.
Edith Dafe Ajekubele who came from Jos said, “This government that is pro-agriculture should empower the farmers,” lamenting that, “The truth of the matter is that in Nigeria today, we only have what I will call psychedelic farmers. They are the retirees and Chief Executive Officers in big organisations. They have the money to do all the needful especially in the area of food preservation because they can afford to own their own cold storage facilities. But unfortunately, those real farmers that farm these produces do not have what it takes to preserve their produces. These same psychedelic farmers will buy everything from the real farmers at a giveaway price because they know they can store it. Therefore, the essence of making the farmers realize what they actually should be realizing from their produce in the long run is not met. This is because they will always continue to sell at giveaway price for lack of the means to price it.
“If government really wants to help farmers, they should make local government authority to have a budget that will cater for the needs of farmers and encourage them to farm and produce more”, she suggested. “By so doing, government is letting the people at the grassroots to know what they are doing and that there are dividends in democracy not only in the lives of the public office holders but even in the lives of the people at their own level.”
Ikara Local Government of Kaduna State has set up Food and Nutrition Committee to curb rising cases of acute malnutrition in the area.
The Nutrition Focal Person in the council, Mrs Theresa Marcus, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Kaduna on Friday.
Marcus explained that the committee is made up of civil society organisations, traditional and religious leaders, youths and local government officials.
She said that the council had also organised a five-day training for 48 health officers on Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF), which opened on May 2.
She added that the council earmarked N250,000 for the committee to implement its work plan, in line with the state’s work plan on nutrition.
According to her, the money will be released monthly to address the increasing
cases of malnourished children in the area, which she described as alarming.
Miss Jessica Bartholomew, a Nutrition Officer, Positive Hope Support and Care Initiative, a Kaduna-based NGO supporting the fight against malnutrition, poverty and HIV and AIDS in the area, described malnutrition indices in the area as disturbing.
She, however, commended the council for the efforts, particularly the immediate past Caretaker Committee Chairman, Alhaji Bayyabu Paki, who facilitated the allocation and timely release of funds to tackle the problem.
Bartholomew revealed that a recent survey in the area helped to uncover more than six cases of acute malnourished children in less than a week, adding that the number kept increasing by the day.
She said “these children would die if not treated. Although we have been able to place most of them on treatment, some parents rejected the offer.
“Not only that, there are hundreds of malnourished children out there that are yet to be discovered.”
The nutritionist said that with support from another NGO, Save the Children, the Food and Nutrition Committee was able to scale-up intervention from 10 to 20 communities in the area.
She called for more support from stakeholders to help stem malnutrition in the area and the state at large.
She blamed the rising malnutrition cases in the area to ignorance on the part of
mothers and caregivers on how to properly feed infants and children.
She said the training of the health officers and care givers on IYCF with focus on exclusive breastfeeding, early initiation of breastfeeding, complementary feeding and homestead garden among others was a sure step in addressing the problem.
A lecturer with the Department of Agronomy, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomosho, Prof Julius Ipadeola Olaifa has said lack of coherent national food security and nutrition policy has serious implications on human survival, national growth and development.
In a chat with Southwest Report, Prof Olaifa, who is a consultant to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the International Atomic Energy Agency, (IAEA) stated that if coherent national food security and nutrition policy the policy is put in place, it will be capable of transforming communities into healthy and productive food producers. This, he said, will ensure reliable and consistent access to affordable nutritious food.
He pointed out that hunger has devastating effects on the health and economic productivity of more than 80 per cent of Nigerians, adding that even those with access to food often suffer
terribly from malnutrition.
“Children not only suffer from the effect of malnutrition, but also from increased susceptibility to disease and other health risks such as neonatal disorders, diarrhoea, pneumonia and malaria. Under nutrition is the underlying cause of maternal mortality each year,” he said.
He further said hunger and malnutrition also affect economic development in near and long-term, while illness, hunger and the need to care for ill children reduces income, particularly for
women.
Seeking a paradigm shift in issues of food import, he urged the Federal Government to spend less on food importation, saying that government should not be rhetorical but pragmatic in reducing food import bill in order to guarantee food security for Nigerians.
“What Nigerians need is serious approach to revitalise the agricultural sector as is being done by the present administration.
“Imagine billions of Naira wasted annually on importation of wheat, when the chain values of cassava is yet to be fully exploited, let alone other cash crop such as mango. A lot of natural and agricultural resources abound in Oke-Ogun areas of Oyo State, for instance, but the government is not tapping them.
“This is why it is imperative for state governments to rehabilitate all their farm settlements, in order to improve agriculture. These resources alone can generate employment for thousands of jobless youths,” he said.
On how to transform the agricultural sector, Olaifa suggested increasing household access to agricultural inputs and credit, improving, natural resource management, and linking agricultural
outputs with local, regional, and national markets.
“Some of the ways to transform the agricultural sector are reduction of livelihood vulnerability, working with communities to increase access to water, as well as developing customised plans to ensure availability, ensuring that access and utilisation of food is stable and sustainable over a long period of time.
“There should be a sustainable social welfare policy that would address problems that might arise when markets do not provide adequate mechanisms to deal with economic uncertainties.
This, according to him, will ascertain the nature of the risks individuals experience in a given society, in order to tailor policies towards meeting these risks in a sustainable fashion.
“Part of the considerations should be based on the fact that agriculture and informal economies are very important because they account for 70 per cent of employment for the teeming population.
“This implies that social welfare programme should address issues on income uncertainties due to the fortuity of informal activities, which fluctuate considerably.”
He lamented the limited coverage of social security systems in the country, which he noted raises serious equity issues, even as he said societal valuable resources and efforts are often targeted at small and privileged segment of the population.
He said: “The Nigerian population is young, and is expected to remain like that over the period between 40 and 50 years.
“This age structure affects the behaviour and demand of social security services. But alas, budgetary allocation for agriculture ought to have been increased from its present 30 per cent to 70 per cent. If this age structure can be properly co-opted and coordinated into agriculture, it will not only prop-up employment generation, but will also reduce crimes, restiveness and other anti-social activities in our society.”
Olaifa stated that there is hardly any state in the country that is not effectively productive.
“Agricultural production is sustained by peasant farmers. We have good weather, no global warming, coupled with ample rainfall. These are what we need for production of crops such as cassava, maize and yam. We have fishery and poultry products in the Southwest. What of South-south and the Southeast that produce oil palm. Equally too are the onion, pepper, goats, and sheep produced in quantity in the North and moved to the South. What of pepper, carrots, and others?’’
“Politicians play politics with rice. They assume it is the only food commodity in the country. That is wrong. They have forgotten yams and plantains, which are produced locally, From Lagos to Maiduguri, Port Harcourt to Enugu and Ibadan, where is yam not taken as food? Yet, yam farmers across the country are not given the kind of attention given to rice until recently. The present administration is interested in rice, and is pragmatically improving its production locally,” he said.
Prof. Olaifa, however, pointed out that the major problem confronting the country currently is food processing.
‘’What have we developed from yam, cassava and plantain, for instance, other than garri, fufu, and chips? It is the present generation that started garri, fufu, and even the chips. We should develop new products from these commodities. China, Malaysia and Indonesia have no other crops other than rice. They have thousands of products developed from rice. That is what we need now,” he stated.
No fewer than 10 model primary schools in Lagos Island Local Government, Lagos State have benefited from a two-year health and nutrition training, courtesy of a non-governmental organisation (NGO), Save the Children.
Ahead of the event, tagged: “School health and nutrition end of project meeting”, and held at Olive – Ace hall, Onikan, the organisers had donated various equipment and facilities to beneficiary schools.
The pupils, many of whom have joined the health clubs in their various schools and have been trained as Ambassadors of Change, were charged with improving the quality of their school environment and community to make it safe and clean.
Aside the trainings, the NGO also renovated the schools’ toilet facilities, water supply and donated drinking water buckets and other cleaning supplies.
Project Adviser for the organisation, Mrs Amaka Ifionu, said: “We take responsibility for the children around us, those ones entrusted in our care. Lagos Island is peculiar because these pupils see affluence around them but do not experience it. You will be surprised that they are more disadvantaged than pupils from lesser affluent environments.”
She, however, pleaded with the government to increase the monthly operational and maintenance allowance given to head teachers of each school. She admonished the beneficiaries on maintenance culture of the items provided.
State Universal Basic Education Board Chairman, Dr Ganiyu Sopeyin noted that the knowledge acquired by beneficiaries would yield fruits that would be useful to them.
Sopeyin, who was represented by the Deputy Director of Special Education, Mrs Bunmi Oteju said: “Save the Children has since realised that the government cannot do it all alone and has, therefore, come to our aid. This gesture should be emulated by other organisations and individuals.”
One of the trainees, a basic five pupil of St Mary’s Girls Primary School, said: “I am very happy with the NGO and company that have sent us these relief materials. I have learnt how to make my school and community clean and I am going teach my friends from other schools who have not had the opportunity of being taught like me.”
Bio-fortification is one of the nutritional interventions making communities healthier and farmers more prosperous, Daniel Essiet reports.
There is a global reason to promote nutritious staple crops for farmers and consumers.
Crops involved range from rice, wheat, maize, cassava, beans, sweet potato, pearl millet, banana, plantain, lentil, potato and sorghum. Micro-nutrients that have been targeted for bio-fortification are Vitamin A, iron and zinc.
In Nigeria, high-yielding cassava, fortified with Vitamin A, is becoming popular as it is helping farmers raise healthier families and improve their livelihoods.
The farmers planting it have created wealth and made more money. Some have gone ahead to give their surplus to others to grow more biofortified cassava and expand nutritional benefits.
The Country Manager, Harvest Plus Nigeria, Dr Paul Ilona, noted that while the normal cassava provides calories, it does not provide enough micronutrients, such as Vitamin A that are required for good health.
These micronutrients are essential as their deficiencies are responsible for some debilitating nutritional disorders, including birth defects, mental and physical retardation, weakened immune systems, blindness and even death. Ilona said people who do not get enough micronutrients suffer from a ‘hidden hunger,’ with serious consequences.
He stressed that micronutrients are essential for human health and nutrition. If properly used, it can significantly contribute to reduce morbidity, malnutrition and mortality.
So far, Vitamin A, Iron, Zinc, Iodine, Calcium, Vitamin D and Vitamin B12 are some of the important micronutrients. However, ensuring their availability to the poor is a big challenge. According to him, Vitamin A, is essential for good health. Vitamin A deficiency, he added, increases risk of preventable blindness, disease and death from severe infections.
He said HarvestPlus, and other partners develop vitamin A cassava through conventional breeding in a process known as biofortification. Therefore, he expects more Nigerians to be eating vitamin A cassava because many people, including farmers, are challenged by micronutrient deficiencies.
Apart from cassava, he said Harvestplus has released an orange sweet potato that is richer in Vitamin A. There is also Vitamin A-rich maize.
So far, Nigeria has incorporated pro-vitamin A cassava and orange-fleshed sweet potatoes in its Growth Enhancement Support Scheme, whose goal is to reach 2.5 million farming households.
Farmers using these varieties are harvesting more yields per hectare and earning more income selling the surplus. HarvestPlus and its partners work in 22 states to promote the availability, adoption, and consumption of Vitamin A cassava and maize. The goal is that more than 1.6 million farming households will be growing these biofortified crops by 2018.
According to him, HarvestPlus supports breeding, testing and releasing Vitamin A cassava developed through partnership with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA).
He added that the organisation work with public and private sector partners to multiply Vitamin A cassava stems and distribute to farmers.
According to him, the programme is using creative public awareness campaigns through the media, including Nollywood, to educate Nigerians on micronutrient deficiencies and the benefits of Vitamin A cassava.
So far, he said, the organisation is supporting commercial processing of Vitamin A cassava into popularly consumed products, such as gari and fufu that are marketed nationwide. Participants are taken through processing and the preparation of various recipes, such as flour, balls, chips, cakes and pie.
The Provost, Federal College of Agriculture, Akure, Ondo State, Dr Samson Odedina, said the institution is providing an outlet where farmers are encouraged to adopt and consume vitamin A cassava.
‘’The college also warehouses a model one-stop shop where consumers can buy Vitamin A cassava stems, tubers, and ready-to-eat products. Our advocacy seeks to strengthen national ownership of biofortification through effective integration into national nutrition and agricultural policies. The college is training both students and farmers on processing and utilisation. The training is part of the value chain and enterprise development strategy of to increase household income generation opportunities through the sale of cassava products and market creation,’’ he said.
Pelumi Aribisala, a farmer in Ibadan, is growing nutritious and high-yield iron-rich cassava and earning higher income. He and others have harvested their Vitamin A cassava.
Yesterday, I had an unusual breakfast. I decided to have a balanced meal instead of a usual something. Later in the day as I went through my emails, I got a rejection letter. The email actually came in three days earlier but I did not notice it amongst the many that I had opened. Providentially, I must have seen it and opened it when I was mentally fit to open it.
Mental fitness can make a big difference to how we respond to the ups and downs of life and how positive and negative experiences affect us. Mental fitness enables us to reach mental heights. It makes a difference between mediocrity and greatness. It is not so much about how much education we have received. A stark illiterate could be more mentally fit than a university professor. However, mental fitness does help us in acquiring knowledge and qualifications.
Mental fitness is important for personal well-being, societal health, and nation building. The progress of a nation generally depends on the contributions of individual citizens, the commoners and the ruling class. These contributions emanate from mental fitness when we are opportune to contribute in whatever sphere of influence.
Good nutrition is an essential contributor to mental fitness just as it is to bodily fitness. Therefore we revise here what good nutrition means for the common man.
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner is now global standard of eating pattern and has stood the test of time. One could have a habit of eating once a day or twice a day. This is seen amongst animals, some of which eat once every few days. It is hard work catching a prey and they simply eat to satiety when they manage to kill and leave the rest to vultures. Let us hope no human is forced to eat once every few days or only whenever kindness comes to a beggar. There are many reasons one could opt to eat once a day or twice a day.
For some time in California, USA, I was eating a big breakfast and doing long experiments in the lab throughout the day and eating a big dinner in the evening. I got into the habit of skipping lunch but I might have been eating more than somebody eating three meals a day because I was not getting slim. I confess, I put on a few extra pounds.
In many parts of the developed world, people eat once a day out of poverty. In Lagos, this is styled 001, 010, or 100 depending on what part of the day is lucky.The world standard for good nutrition is breakfast, lunch, and dinner and we should try to have this standard.Missing meals leads to low blood sugar, low energy for the brain and muscles, and low mood, plus irritability and fatigue. This way of life can hardly produce rocket scientists, wonder working engineers, radical technologists, magical entrepreneurs, or the brood of people that tows a nationunto greatness nor can it achieve precision planning, brilliant logistics, astute management, technical endurance, etc., – some of the stuff that makes great nations.
Fresh produce tend to be more nutritious and safer than synthetic products, assuming everything were equally hygienic.An average adult should eat the following types of foods regularly.
FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.The World Health Organization recommends that individuals consume a minimum of 400g of fruit and vegetables per day. This amounts to about 5 portions of fruits and vegetables, each portion about 80g, and not counting starchy tubers such as yams and cassava. Thus theBritish authorities have been encouraging at least “five a day”. The British Dietary Association says: “Try to eat one or two portions with each meal and make fruit or vegetables the first choice for a snack and it will be easy to eat at least five a day” (https://www.bda.uk.com/foodfacts/FruitVeg.pdf). Because a variety of fruits and vegetables is important for us to get different vitamins and minerals, we are also advised to “eat a rainbow”. Therefore if you are including something green, something white, something red, something yellow, something orange, something purple, etc., amongst your fruits and vegetables, you are most likely getting a wide variety of vitamins, minerals, and protective antioxidants and phytonutrients.
Tropical foods, traditionally, are well cooked because of the risk of parasites in lightly cooked foods- including those that have a variety of vegetables as ingredients. Egusi soup, for example, has its own rainbow of vegetables: tomatoes, onions, peppers, greens, and egusi. Well-cooked food retains a lot of minerals but some vitamins are lost. Therefore, fresh fruits need to be added to such diets. The streets of Lagos and perhaps those of many cities in the tropics have many fruit vendors and city dwellers should take advantage to eat a variety of clean fruits regularly.
The Telegraph in Britain, in 2014, reported a 12-year study by researchers at the University College London that found that “eating large quantities of fruit and vegetables significantly lowered the risk of premature death. People who ate at least seven portions of fruit and vegetables each day were 42 per cent less likely to die from any cause over the course of the study.” Thus ten portions of fruit and vegetables daily were recommended (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/10735633/Healthy-diet-means-10-portions-of-fruit-and-vegetables-per-day-not-five.html). The average budget can do with five portions for good enough health. It is not necessary to think too much about the numbers, five, ten, etc. We need to think about the idea – variety with constancy. To be continued.
Dr. ‘Bola John is a biomedical scientist based in Nigeria and in the USA. For any comments or questions on this column, please email bolajohnwritings@yahoo.com or call 08160944635
