Amidst efforts to achieve food and nutrition security in the country, HavestPlus in collaboration with the federal government has scaled up learning both at the federal and state level to boost adoption of biofortified crops.

The Country Manager of HavestPlus, Dr. Yusuf Dollar stated this during a consultative policy workshop on climate smart agriculture and biofortification in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security and the International Food Policy Research Institute

Dollar explained that the consultative meeting was to deepen understanding of biofortification at the state level, such that policymakers can make informed policy that would improve the uptake of the biofortified crops.

He said There was need to bring together the new commissioner, permanent secretaries at the state level for them to learn so that when they get to their states they can implement the strategies as well as create an enabling environment for the crops.

When promoting value chains there is need to work closely with the state government, we have found out that usually the governors does not know about programs and that is because the technocrats working with the Governors does not have adequate information to brief the governors.

The Country Manager explained that HavestPlus complement existing nutrition initiatives using biofortified staple crops, that is crops bread to have high level of micronutrients and vitamins so that as farmers grow them and consume, they will have access to the micronutrients required by the body to live a healthy live.

While mentioning that their focus was on staple crops including maize, millet, cassava, potato and rice, he stated that to enhance nutrition security in the country, the rural farmers can access the crops, grow and consume them thereby accessing the essential micronutrients and vitamins.

Dollar mentioned that the biofortified technology is the most cost effective technology that can be taken to vulnerable groups in the communities for them to have access to nutritious foods, saying usually people in the rural areas don’t consume packaged food but when they access biofortified seeds, grow it and consume, they can improve their micronutrients deficiencies.

He also mentioned that other than breading varieties for micronutrients, they also put into consideration demand by farmers to have crops that that can survive the harsh weather conditions, rainfall cessation among others, saying they also consider drought tolerant and high yielding in developing the varieties.

The Head of National Policy HavestPlus, Washington DC, Reva Misra, explained that the workshop is about facilitating the needed policy reforms to enable scaling up access to climate smart agriculture and biofortified input so that farmers can have access to nutrition and also be more resident to climate change.

She said that the representative of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Health and Environment as well as development partners were brought together to talk about the issue.

Misra further mentioned that there is lot of experience between the government and private sector, however the main thing is a coordinated roadmap that make the reforms practical adding that the major shift with the National Agriculture Technology and Innovation Policy and the climate change policy how can be used as a joint reform roadmap.