NAFDAC’s laudable initiative on food fortification

Given the high levels of both Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) and Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) in the country, with deficiencies in vital vitamins and essential minerals identified as one of the contributory factors, the intervention role of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) in the enforcement of food fortification could not have come at a better time. More so, because Nigeria is a signatory to the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and currently Sustainable Development Goals. Good enough, part of the noble goals is to drastically reduce the scourge of the twin evils of Protein Energy Malnutrition(PEM) and micronutrient-related diseases.

Aptly tagged the ‘hidden hunger’ micronutrient malnutrition is one serious health challenge no nation wanting to raise a productive manpower from its active citizenry can afford to toy with. Its devastating effects on society’s vulnerable group of children, pregnant and nursing mothers cannot be underestimated. The truth however, is that such a vision may remain one pipe dream all because of other militating factors such as the pervasive poverty in the land, worsened by economic recession, lack of access to fortified foods by the rural poor and ignorance on the part of not a few consumers of sundry food items.

While enunciation of laudable, life-saving policies by government is important, of more significance is the enforcement of such. That is where NAFDAC’s inevitable role comes in. Along with the United Nation’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), it has since 2015 called for 100 percent compliance on the mandatory fortification of flour, sugar, salt and vegetable oil in the country.

Though this came to the fore at a workshop on: “Improving the effectiveness of food fortification in Nigeria” held in Lagos a few years ago, much more needs to be done than said through the implementation of this.

The food fortification policy will see to it that readily available and affordable food items are made more nutritious, by the addition of the vital vitamins and minerals. Although these minerals and vitamins are required in minute quantities, their absence in the body can cause severe micro-nutrient deficiency diseases (MDD). According to NAFDAC, Nigeria is one of the countries in the world with high incidents of both Iodine Deficiency Disorder (IDD) and Iron Deficiency Anaemia (IDA).

The import of this revelation is the increasing need to keep educating Nigerians on the importance and imperative of buying only processed flours, sugar, salt and vegetable oil that are fortified with vitamins and are also NAFDAC-approved. They must take their time to look at and read the inscriptions on the packages of processed foods. Though NAFDAC has recorded high level of compliance, put at 80 percent by large and medium scale food companies on the fortification with vitamin A there are still challenges for Nigeria.

One is the continued smuggling of vegetable oil and sugar that are not fortified with the vital vitamin into the country, while the other is the local milling of maize as well as the manual production of vegetable oil without fortification with vitamins.

Part of the solution to these challenges informed the appeal by food industry watchers to the Federal Government, on letting NAFDAC remain as one of the effective monitoring agencies at the ports and the porous borders, working in tandem with the Customs and Immigration Services. And with the effective partnership the agency has forged with Local Government Councils across the country, it would do well to step up the sensitisation programme on food fortification at the grassroots level.

The agency’s promise to mop up all such unfortified processed food in the nooks and crannies of the country should be adopted holistically. It should involve all the relevant stakeholders and also be a continuous exercise. Beyond that is the possibility of providing retail packs of vitamin A premixes and sprinkles to the rural millers. Another challenge here   however, is for NAFDAC officials to monitor such empowerment initiative as there have been reports of the importation/smuggling of sub standard vitamin premixes into the country in the past.

To succeed therefore, the current collaborative efforts between UNICEF, the SON and NAFDAC must be seen to its logical conclusion. It would be recalled for instance, that it was UNICEF that initiated the government policy mandating the fortification of all flours, cooking oils and salt, years ago, according to Nutrition Specialist, Dr. Isiaka Alo. And the SON’s representative, Deputy Director, Margaret  Eshiett has called for improvement of monitoring of the cottage industries.

In addition, the mass media has to be carried along in the effective dissemination of relevant information even in the local languages to the small and medium scale millers. Nigerian consumers need to be enlightened on the health hazards posed by the purchase, marketing and consumption of foods not duly fortified with vitamins. Common diseases such as night blindness, weak bones and teeth, scurvy, beriberi, goitre, anaemia, malformed nervous system have all been linked to deficiencies of vitamins and essential minerals. Yet, a little more public awareness on nutrition and economic empowerment of the people would have reduced them to the barest minimum.

Various governments should therefore, rise up to the challenge of implementing policies that combat the menace of poverty and ignorance. More budgetary allocation should go to the health and education sectors. We need more qualified medical personnel and an enabling infrastructure at the rural areas. Both public and private health institutions should step up their enlightenment campaigns on nutrition, in the same way that Friesland WAMCO Campina has done with the Chief Olu Akinkugbe Child Nutrition Centre. 

Nigerians must come to realise that the right choice of foods in favour of mineral and vitamin-rich green, leafy vegetables, highly coloured fruits, nuts, fortified flours, sugar, salt, vegetable oil  and low-fat dairy products would save them and their children the valuable money they spend in the hospitals, battling preventable diseases. And this is because, all said and done, we are what we eat