Govt buys $250k of ‘kick-starter’ food

The Government has pledged $250,000 to buy Plumpy Nut – an aptly-named, special food that will save children from starvation.

Last month, Foreign Minister Murray Mccully said New Zealand would provide $3 million to support emergency famine relief and prevention efforts in Africa and Yemen.

Unicef NZ will receive $250,000, which the charity will match, to provide the ready-to-use therapeutic food to malnourished children in South Sudan.

That’s six-weeks’ worth of the protein-rich supplement for between 3000 and 4000 starving children.

Unicef NZ international developments manager Rose Fenton refers to Plumpy Nut as ‘‘miracle food’’. The former nurse used it to help malnourished children in Papua New Guinea and advocates its use in South Sudan and other nations facing famine.

She said Plumpy Nut was a lot like peanut butter, and contained extra vitamins and minerals. The paste-like food was high in calories and protein – something that was hard to come by during famine.

Fenton said the food, which did not need any water added, was developed by a Frenchman. The idea came to him while he spread Nutella on his toast one morning. It was used like a kick-starter food to help severely malnourished children come back from the brink of starvation. It was designed to be eaten in conjunction with other food.

Unicef NZ was already distributing Plumpy Nut in South Sudan and the additional funds would help further the efforts.

In March, Mccully said more than 20 million people were facing famine conditions or severe food shortages across the Greater Horn of Africa, Nigeria, and Yemen.