Africa Research Centre, agric stakeholders partner to promote indigenous food

The Africa Centre of Excellence for Food Technology and Research (CEFTER), in partnership with stakeholders in agricultural sector, is working towards promoting African Indigenous Food.

Florunsho Olayemi, event planner for the second edition of the West and Central Africa Post-Harvest Conference and Exhibition said the conference would focus on African foods and how it has been poorly preserved in spite of its importance.

Olayemi said this year edition themed ‘Upscaling and Promotion of African Indigenous Foods will emphases the crucial role African indigenous foods play in food and nutrition security as well as in medicinal values and income generation.

He said these crops were ready alternatives to common staples, but remains largely unknown to the public.

According to him, the promotion of these indigenous crops for food, especially among the rural dwellers, will not only sustainably combat hunger in Africa, but can gain inclusiveness in global food system.

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“The goal of the conference was to bring together private and public participants, stakeholders particularly in West and Central Africa, to develop roadmap through research and policy options to improve production and processing,’’ he said.

He said that the policy would also help in marketing of African Indigenous Foods for inclusion in the food systems.

He said the congress would help address the challenges and opportunities in the production of African Indigenous Foods as regarding storage and packaging technologies in ensuring it meets global standards.

“The aim of the congress will be to discuss the nutritional benefits of African Indigenous Foods, promote public health and strengthening the medicinal values and improving post-harvest techniques of these foods through research in order to improve the food safety, quality and establish quality standard for African Indigenous Foods,’’ he said. The WCAPHCE 2022 is scheduled to hold from November 28th to December 2nd, 2022 in Abuja.