The Chief Executive Officer of HarvestPlus, Beverley Postma has provided some insights on the new vision of HarvestPlus in Nigeria and how the visions will be executed.
Postma made this known at a press conference which was hosted by the Country Manager of HarvestPlus in Nigeria, Mr Paul Ilona, which held at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan on Tuesday, September 5, 2017.
The CEO HarvestPlus in her address during the conference said “I am delighted to be here in Nigeria as this is my first trip to Nigeria Harvest Plus Country team and I am very happy to be hosted by the fantastic Country Manager, Paul Ilona.”
She commended the effort of the country manager and his team for their hard work towards establishing HarvestPlus in Nigeria for over seven- years.
Postma extensively explained the role of Harvestplus in Nigeria, “HarvestPlus in Nigeria is based on three crops the likes of Cassava, Maize, and Potato which all have naturally enhanced level of vitamin A.”
Speaking on the essentials of Vitamin A, Postma said that Vitamin A is one of the vital building blocks that helps secular blindness, strengthens the immune system which makes children and adults less vulnerable to some killer diseases like malaria, pneumonia, and diarrhea.
She further gave kudos to the country manager and other agripreneurs who have produced products that are beneficial to the body system.
Postma further added that HarvestPlus is not stopping on the three crops but they are planning to develop and release other staple crops so that we can bring vital minerals and vitamins like Zinc and Iron into diet.
Explaining how HarvestPlus is planning to reach 1billion people by 2030, Postma said “in order to scale up to reach these people in 2030, 200million has been estimated for the project and there is also the need to input more effort in the next five years into completing the research discovery works of these crops.” She added that some funding needs to go into the research in IITA on crops like cassava and sweet potato.
She however said “all these crops require an amazing amount of research and investment to ensure that they are not only nutritious but also yield the maximum result of reducing diseases because a farmer will not buy crops only because it is nutritious but because it is also performing.
“The above 200million estimated is about global figure that will be needed across three continents. Continents like Africa, where 5-18 countries will be scaled up. Also in Asia, 3-7 countries will be scaled up and finally in Latin America.
“Scaling up which will take place in these continents is a big investment because these are the areas where we see population suffer from a high risk of malnutrition.”
But as any businessman will tell you “you have to invest in your research and development before you begin to take up the scale,” she said.
She finally appreciated the Nigerian government for their support towards biofortified crops and therefore looks forward to continue working with them and the future.
Also speaking at the press conference which held at International Institute of Tropical Agriculture on Tuesday, Wolfgang Pfeiffer, the Chief Scientific Officer of HarvestPlus said that nutritious food is good for healthy living.
Wolfgang describes biofortification as the only intervention which helps farmers to generate income and these biofortified crops should make Nigerians proud.
He said “there is an increase in deficiency from South – North,” therefore he expressed his hope to see prominent biofortified products in action next year.”
Wolfgang concluded by saying that Nigeria has a very bright future because biofortified food will make the round come 2020.
