Experts meet to promote African foods

Stakeholders in the food sector on Tuesday met in Abuja to discuss ways to promote African foods at the second West and Central Africa Postharvest Congress and Exhibition with the theme: “Upscaling and Promotion of African Indigenous Foods (AIF).

It was organised by the Centre for Food Technology and Research of the Benue State University (BSU), Makurdi.

Declaring the congress open, representative of the Minister of Agriculture, Hassan Sule, said the major challenge threatening food security on the continent remained post-harvest losses, which he noted were also affecting African foods.

He said to address the challenge, the federal government had concessioned its 17 grains reserves to private operators for effective maintenance and easy access by farmers.

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Sule, who is the Director of Food and Strategic Reserve in the ministry, said that the government had also set up grains aggregation centres across the country where farmers could take their produce for proper packaging.

Earlier, the Director of the centre, Dr Barnabas Ikyo, regretted that African countries were still importing up to 35 per cent of their foods despite “our” arable lands and rich foods.

He assured that the congress would provide opportunity for networking among the stakeholders, promising that the outcome of the congress would be judiciously put into use to provide the necessary solutions.

In his remark, the Vice Chancellor (VC) of BSU, Professor Tor Joe Iorapuu, noted that the congress would focus on research that would promote African foods, improve on production, processing, control post-harvest losses, among others.