The Federal Government through the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh on Thursday inaugurated the Inter-Ministerial Working Group on Agriculture and Nutrition.
Chief Ogbeh at the inauguration stressed the need for improved agriculture and nutrition, saying” food is the best medicine but can also be the worst poison”
According to Chief Ogbeh, ” We also have to deal with the issue of self poison, so it’s important to know what to eat otherwise,we simply ingest poison”.
The Minister further decried the situation where children have no access to milk,beaf, Chicken and basic proteins, Adding that “when they lack this,it means there is a problem.”
Chief Ogbeh stressed that “The assignment before Group is a very serious one,noting that the best time to develop a child’s brain is between ages of 1-5 so as not to have mentally stunted children.
He maintained that now that we are attaining self sufficiency in rice, we should adopt the Japan model and not be growing rice from the same parcel of the land.”if we do we will be increasing the arsenic in crop which is harmful to humans.”
Presenting the Group to the Minister earlier, Director of Agriculture in the Ministry, Dr Amin Mohammed Babandi said “Members of the committee are culled from Ministries of Water Resources, Health, Education, Budget and National Planning, Women Affairs, Environment respectively as well as from Development Partners, Agencies and the Nigeria Agribusiness group.”
The major objective of the Working Group is to increase and sustain the availability, access, affordability and consumption of nutritious and diverse foods among vulnerable groups in Nigeria to reduce stunting, micro nutrients deficiencies , over weight and obesity” he said.
He added that “It is expected that the activities of the group will lead to the implementation of programmes that would result and improve access to foods through improved processing,storage and preservation along the food value chain.”
The objectives would further “Diversify household for food production resulting in the consumption of adequate diets and nutrition,increase the resilience and social protection of the Working Group, context appropriate nutrition research and adequate and appropriate nutrition information and surveillance systems,improve capacity within government to address food and nutrition, security problems and establishment of sustainable nutrition and evaluation systems in Nigeria” he said
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