• Friday, March 29, 2024
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HarvestPlus Nigeria set to launch ‘Biofort Stat’ to drive investment in nutrition

Outrage as CBN gives 4 foreign firms nod to import maize

HarvestPlus Nigeria says it plans to launch a marketing portal called biofort stat to capture information of biofortified crops in the country and drive investment in nutrition.

Paul Ilona, country director, made the disclosure recently at a workshop organised by the organisation for its partners held at the International Institute of Tropical Research (IITA) in Ibadan.

Ilona said that the marketing portal which would be launched officially launched in November will be loaded with relevant nutrition data for investors that require data to make investment decision in the country’s nutrition sector.

“We have built a marketing portal called the Biofort Stat which is conceptualise in line with the FAO stats. After our meeting with our partners in the Food and Organisation, we agreed that if we are to contribute to the biofortified food sector, data must be important to us,” Ilona said.

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“This is why we are complimenting FAO stats. At the same time, use that information to spur investment and help sustain investments. We hope that by the end of July we would have been able to upload information and make it available to people.

“But we will officially launched in November during the Nutritious Food Fair (NFF) to be held in IITA premises,” he further said.

He however, added that the main goal of the organisation is to help promote fortified crops in the country to help tackle issues of malnutrition.

According to him, the firm is partnering with smallholder farmers and small and medium scale enterprises to increase the production of vitamin A cassava and maize for rural food consumption and industrial application.

Ilona also said that HarvestPlus shall have over 100 on-farm trails across the country for cassava and maize as a demonstration farms to training farmers.

Josephine Okojie