NAN-AE-7
Crop
By Suleiman Shehu
Ibadan, Sept. 5, 2017 (NAN) Mrs Beverly Postma, the Chief Executive Officer of HarvestPlus, an international agriculture organisation, said the body had developed new varieties of crops with Vitamin A.
Postma disclosed this on Tuesday in Ibadan at a news conference organised to showcase the new vision of HarvestPlus.
She said the organisation had also developed new crop varieties with resistance to disease and high yielding capacity in Nigeria through extensive research.
HarvestPlus is an international organisation which aims to improve crop nutrients, public health and distribute staple food crops that are rich in vitamins and minerals.
The chief executive said that the varieties of crops the organisation developed were Vitamin A Maize, Vitamin A cassava and orange fleshed sweet potato which were of high yielding capacity and nutritious value.
She added that the vitamin crops help to prevent blindness, improve immunity to killer diseases such as malaria, diarhorea, among others.
She noted that farmers enjoyed growing the crops not only because of their nutrients but also of their high yielding capacity and resistance to disease and pests, thereby improving farmers’ income.
Postma said many households were already growing and consuming vitamin A cassava in Oyo State, adding that
“in Nigeria and Africa as a whole, many people do not have enough money to go to shopping malls to buy
processed foods.
“But with these varieties of crops which contain vitamins right from planting stage, they can now have access to nutritious crops.”
She explained that the vision of the organisation was to help eradicate hunger for at least one billion people by 2030 and increase the nutrient of their food consumption.
She added that “to do this, we need to spend 200 million dollars in 30 countries, including Nigeria in the next five years.
“We need to invest in research and develop more nutritious crops early enough.”
Mr Paul Ilona, the Country Manager, HarvestPlus, said a lot of Nigerian children suffer illness of one form or the other due to malnutrition.
Ilona said “every Nigerian has a right to nutritious food. We want to call for the support of the various levels of government and the public toward addressing nutritional challenges in the country.” (NAN)
SYS/HA
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Edited by Hadiza Mohammed-Aliyu