Harvestplus to hold nutritious food fair — Official

Harvestplus

In a bid to fight hidden hunger, increase demand and consumption of nutritious food, Harvestplus, an international organization, plans to hold nutritious food fair in Calabar.

Ministers of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbeh; Health, Professor Isaac Adewole, governors of Cross River State, Senator Ben Ayade; Anambra State, Chief Willie Obiano, and World Food Prize Winners, Dr. Howarth Boius, and Dr. Jan Low, among others are some of the dignitaries expected to grace this year’s Nutritious Food Fair (NFF).

The fair which is the second edition will take place at TINAPA and the Calabar International Convention Center (CICC), Cross River State from November 9 to 11 titled; ‘Multisectoral Partnership to Promote More Nutritious Crops and Foods’

Country Manager of HarvestPlus Nigeria, Paul Ilona, made this known during a media parley held at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, Oyo State.

He said the media parley was part of the organisation’s biannual partners review meeting, intended to assess the progress and strategies employed in the delivery of biofortification in Nigeria in 2016, and to draw a roadmap for 2017 and its delivery partners in four target states, including Oyo, Benue, Imo and Akwa-Ibom.

“We, as always, do not have a commercial intention. We want to create linkages to promote partnerships in the nutritious food sector. We are providing a platform for conversation on and around nutrition, not in terms of quantity, but quality. We are using the fair as medium to get big industries to explore home-grown sources of nutritious staples as raw materials for their products,” he said.

The first edition of the Nutritious Food Fair held in Abuja last year, according to him, attracted important government dignitaries including representation from the office of the Vice President as well as key stakeholders in the agricultural, research, health, education, development and food sectors.

He said this year’s event promises to be more engaging that the three-day fair would bring together stakeholders in International and National research institutions, Agriculture, Health, Education, Science & Technology and Trade and Commerce, including government representatives.

Others are development and donor agencies, small, medium and large scale food industries, input dealers, seed companies, researchers, farmers, processors, consumers, entertainment and media, among others. An estimated 5000 persons will participate in the event.

HarvestPlus partner at the Akwa-Ibom State University (AKSU), Dr. Edna Akpan, said the event would help to showcase the job that HarvestPlus has embarked on for about five years and also avail farmers the opportunity to interface with off takers of their produce.

“The fair follows from the successes of the last edition. This year promises to be bigger. We would be in Cross River to host farmers and show them that there is immense value in what they do,” he added.