Paul Ilona, representing Nigeria’s HarvestPlus, an organization that focuses on improving nutrition and public health through biofortification of food crops, believes that urbanization within the country has not been properly managed and that it’s affecting the dietary diversity of residents.
According to Ilona, fruit trees have been overtaken by ornamental trees, affecting the country’s nutritional density, hence the need for biofortification.
“Urbanization is seriously affecting the dietary diversity of Nigerians, and there is need for more nutritious foods,” Ilona said. “We have not done enough to add value to diversifying our foods; we have focused too much on urbanization.”
He said in the old days, on the way from school, you could climb any number of fruit trees. Ornamental trees are good, he said, but they do not add value. Urbanization is good, he adds, but we have not managed it well.
Ilona believe the country is concentrating too much on producing carbohydrate foods.
“It is not about how much food you have to put into the system,” he said. “It’s the extent to which the food you have meets the desires of your body.”
In 2015, the World Health Organization cited that every hour 100 children under the age of five die and six women of childbearing age die in Nigeria. “This should be a concern to us. About 60 percent of the reasons for their deaths have been attributed to malnutrition,” Ilona said.
Source: The Herald, News Agency of Nigeria.
