HarvestPlus in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Agricultural Development Program (ADP) through the ADP’s Women in Agriculture (WIA) Extension Program have trained women to scale up the production and consumption of Vitamin A cassava and Vitamin A maize to improve household nutrition and income in Niger and Kaduna State.
This is because 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 partnership with funding and support from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), is a medium for the transfer of agriculture and nutrition proven innovations and technologies in production, processing, marketing, consumption and nutrition to families.
The training aimed at improving the knowledge of women extension agents on biofortification and nutrition, would enable them mainstream biofortification into their daily engagements with women in local communities.
These WIA officers will subsequently step down biofortification messages during fortnight training using an extension training tool developed by HarvestPlus to promote effective gender based extension delivery methods.
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The WIA received training on cultural and agronomical practices of these biofortified crops anchored by the Community Based Adversary (CBA).
The Nutrition and Post-Harvest Officer at HarvestPlus, Olatundun Kalejaiye, stated the training was aimed at empowering and equipping the WIA women with the knowledge to train other women how to get 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 said the food based approaches are the best ways to tackle malnutrition and that biofortification (which is a food based strategy) compliments other approaches like dietary diversification, supplementation and food fortification.
Halima Abubakar, Deputy Head WIA at the Niger State Agricultural and Mechanization Development Authority (NAMDA) who coordinated the training said it became necessary to train the women as 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 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, noted the importance of Vitamin A on the entire household specifically for women, lactating mothers and children under the age of five years.
She added 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.
A miller at Dagodnagbe village, Mallam Yahaya Umar, said the number of villagers that patronises his 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.