The State Governor, Sen. Prof. Ben Ayade, has assured the people of Cross River state that a Council on Food and Nutrition will soon be put in place in the State.
The Governor stated this during the opening ceremony of the 2016 Nutritious Food Fair programme holding at Calabar International Conference Centre CICC in Calabar.
Governor Ayade, who was represented at the ceremony by the Speaker, Cross River State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. John Gaul Lebo, said it is the responsibility of the State Government to ensure that food and nutrition programmes are included in State schools curriculum.
Ayade said the Nutritious Food Fair initiative will help educate the students on food and nutrition which will encourage them to pick interest in becoming nutritionists.
The Governor explained that he is concerned with the food project initiative in the State, which modalities Government is working out for greater food production, export and for empowerment of the local farmers.
Also speaking the country’s Representative and Director, Harvest Plus, Dr. Paul Ilona said Food Nutrition initiative, ‘’Nutritious Food Fair’’ will bring together all the key players in the sector for purpose of complementing and enlightening each other and also respond to Government and private sector initiatives.
Dr Ilona added that ‘’in Nigeria today, we have several initiatives that address Health issues and lot of these are anchored under the Federal ministry of Health, such as the dietary diversification support to ensure that what you cannot get in a particular food, you get in another food… we have the supplementation programme today as a success in Nigeria….currently, we have the commercial food fortification programme which is ongoing.
He highlighted the importance of Food Fair initiative which is to help reduce child mortality rate in the country to at least 25% in a few years.
Highpoint of the occasion was an inspection tour of the stands of various partners and food varieties such as Sun Business Network, Mario Food, Spectra industries ltd, Kara Kara chicken egg powder, Orange fleshed sweet potato, National Root Crops Research institute and Federal college of Agriculture Akure, ondo State among others.
