Civil society pushes for food fortification

Civil society organisations are advocating for increased access to biofortified crops and food as one of the solutions to combat malnutrition and end stunted growth among children. Biofortified crops and foods are those whose nutritional value has been enhanced. Rwanda targeted to reduce stunting among children under 5 years of age to 18 per cent by 2018. However, this target is far from being achieved as stunting is estimated at 38 per cent, according to figures from the Ministry of Health. Under the ministry’s strategic plan, which runs from July 2018 to June 2024, government seeks to reduce stunting to 29.9 per cent by 2020 and 19 per cent by 2024. Biofortified crops are gotten through biofortification—a process by which the nutritional quality of food crops is improved through agronomic practices, conventional plant breeding, or modern biotechnology, according to the World Health Organisation. Rwanda has an estimated 739,100 stunted children, according to figures from Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Alliance – an umbrella of Civil Society Organisations engaged in the fight against malnutrition in Rwanda. Venuste Muhamyankaka, the Executive Director of SUN Alliance told The New Times that about 16 per cent of children get stunted before they are born because their mothers were malnourished during pregnancy. “There is need for biofortification in crops so that they have the nutrients needed, such as iron. But, those biofortified crops are not scaled up; the seeds for those crops are not adequately available, and they are expensive,” he said. He added that there should be incentives, such as tax exemptions on industries that fortify food so that they make the food affordable to Rwandans. Juvenal Musine, the Programme Officer at Imbaraga Rwanda Farmers’ federation, said they are pushing for biofortification of all crops so as to get required nutrients, arguing that sometimes pregnant mothers are given multivitamin pills as food supplements for them to get required vitamins, which they say can rather be replaced by food from biofortified crops because they are preferable to manufactured drugs. Rwanda Agriculture Board (RAB) is working on fortification of some crops to produce iron and zink-rich beans as well as vitamin A-rich sweet potatoes, according to its director general, Dr Patrick Karangwa He said that efforts need to be put in increasing accessibility to fortified foods. editorial@newtimes.co.rw

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Civil society pushes for food fortification