Since the 2017 devastating farmers-herders crisis that hit Egba village in Agatu Local Government Area in Benue State, things have been very difficult for Martha Ottene – a 37-year-old farmer, widow, and mother of four.
Martha who lost her husband and her trading business due to the crisis could barely feed her four children whose age ranges between four and twelve.
She was forced to depend on the small piece of land her late husband left behind as an inheritance for survival.
She cultivates only rice on the piece of land to feed her children and sell to generate income. But she makes very little from the farm and are children always falling sick frequently.
Each time she visits the hospital with the children, doctors are always advising she feeds are children with food that contains essential micro-nutrients for their development.
“Each time I visit the hospital, the doctor always tells me to introduce other food to my children apart from rice,” Martha says.
“But how can I afford to feed them with other food when I do not have the money to do so?” she asked with pain in her voice.
Rice, which is a key staple in Nigeria is rich in carbohydrates, thiamin, and niacin but does not have the entire nutritional requirement for a child’s development.
Martha, like most Nigerians who feed daily on what they can find to satisfy their hunger needs and have been driven by poverty to consume a single staple crop-which, cannot provide the essential vitamins and minerals for a healthy living especially for her children’s development.
Most Nigerian families can hardly afford foods with high nutritional value, forcing them to feed mostly on starchy foods which are very high in carbohydrates and are often cheaper.
Owing to this, there is a rise in the number of malnourished persons in the country, with available statistics indicating that over 90 percent of Nigerians undergo diverse forms of malnutrition.
This is coupled with the high rate of poverty which is not in any way showing any sign of decreasing.
Nigeria is currently the poverty capital of the world, with 98 million living in multidimensional or extreme poverty, according to the World Poverty Index.
Extreme poverty occurs when a person lives below $1.90 (N684) daily, and this is the case of most Nigerians.
Africa’s most populous nation has a prevalence of undernourishment to population rate of 12percent in 2016, according to Takwimu – a platform that provides data-driven analysis.
And the figure has been growing steadily since 2006, data from Takwimu shows.
According to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) about 2.5 million children under the age of five are malnourished and have stunted growth in Nigeria.
Experts say that Nigeria can change the narrative of the burden of malnutrition, especially in children, when the country fortifies its food through bio-fortification and fortifying processed foods with essential micro-nutrients as well as fertilisers.
Scientists have pioneered a simple but transformative technique to increase the nutritional value of staple food crops, such as sweet potatoes, beans, maize, and cassava amongst others in Africa.
These improved varieties of crops provide higher amounts of vitamin A, iron, and zinc—the three micronutrients identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as most lacking in diets globally.
Recent studies have shown that crops pioneered by scientists have dramatically improved vitamin A status, reduce diarrhoea disease, improve visual function, and reverse iron deficiency in women and children.
Currently, minerals or inorganic compounds are added to fertilizer by traditional plant breeding or biotechnology methods, though the application of fertilizers bio-fortified with micronutrients is the most simple of these methods, according to Kathleen L. Hefferon of the University of Toronto, Canada.
Also, a new variety of biotech rice, which can reduce the impact of vitamin A deficiency responsible for 500,000 cases of irreversible blindness and up to two million deaths each year, exists in many parts of the world and can help in Nigeria.
With biofortified rice, Martha’s children can get the daily nutritional requirement for their growth and development despite consuming a single staple food.
Biotechnology has enabled countries such as China, India and the United States to develop healthier foods for their people.
“With increasing vulnerability to hidden hunger, a condition where people do not get enough essential vitamins and minerals in their daily diets, cases of disabilities associated with micronutrient deficiencies, that is, poor immune system, low IQ, diarrhea, night blindness, anemia among others, will continue to grow if not checked,” Paul Ilona, country manager, HarvestPlus, says.
“In Nigeria where about 50 percent of the population lives in the rural areas, micronutrient malnutrition will lead to increased pressure on national health budgets and a weak labour force which can be addressed with the adoption of biofortified crops,” Ilona says.
Biofortification is a feasible and cost-effective means of delivering micronutrients to populations that may have limited access to diverse diets and other micronutrient interventions.
It is a process by which crops are bred in a way that increases their nutritional value, a procedure, experts say is much cheaper than adding micronutrients to already processed foods.
Also, fortifying food products with essential micro-nutrients will help Nigeria address its high malnutrition rate.
Shawn Baker, director-nutrition programme, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation at a meeting last year with food processors in Nigeria stated that Nigeria has one of the largest burdens of malnutrition in the world which must be addressed.
“Most children in Nigeria do not get enough essential vitamins and minerals in their diets that the child needs for brain and immune system development, eyesight and building adequate blood supply,” Baker said.
“One of the most cost-effective ways is to get essential vitamins and minerals to children-is by adding these micronutrients to the food we eat,” he said.
He noted that food fortification alone cannot tackle the problem of malnutrition in the country despite it is critical to micronutrient deficiency prevention and control.
In Nigeria and the rest of Sub Saharan Africa, micronutrient deficiencies are common among its people due to over-farmed, depleted and nutrient lacking soils as well as high acidity problems among others, experts say.
“Nigeria is the country with the third-highest absolute number of children who are stunted globally. The root cause of this is soil deficiency of micronutrients and inadequate dietary intake,” said Ismail Cakmak, a professor of Plant Nutrition, Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey at a training organised by OCP Africa for Agricultural reporters in the country.
“For Nigeria to reach targets levels of micronutrients in food, the country needs to combine fertiliser fortification with fortification of processed foods as well as biofortification. This approach is sustainable and the most effective solution to micronutrient deficiency in food,” Sabanci said.
Josephine Okojie
