Govt alive to nation’s nutrition needs

GOVERNMENT’S input support schemes such as Command Agriculture demonstrate its commitment to address nutrition and food insecurity challenges, a Government official has said.

Addressing stakeholders gathered for a nutrition sensitisation workshop in Nyanga on Tuesday, senior principal director in the Office of the President and Cabinet Mr Albert Chikondo said there was need for a multi-sectoral approach to deal with the problem of nutrition and food security.

“Workshops like this one should come up with solid suggestions and strategies on addressing the problems of nutrition and food insecurity,” he said.

“They should provide well-informed feedback and strategies that will excite politicians to influence policy.

“The production of food should have the nutritional component included from the onset and this starts with a change of mindsets for people who believe that there is food security only when there is enough maize for sadza.

Small grains

“I am glad to note that Government has decided to extend the Command Agriculture’s focus to include small grains, which is a sign of responding to nutritional demands.”

The technical committee for food and nutrition security organised the highlevel inter-sectoral workshop to promote nutrition sensitive programming within key line ministries.

The workshop was attended by representatives from the ministries of Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development; Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement; Primary and Secondary Education; Environment, Water and Climate; and Industry, Commerce and Enterprise Development.

Mrs Siboniso Chigova, a food safety and nutrition officer with the Food and Nutrition Council (NFC) — a Government mandated lead agency on food and nutrition in Zimbabwe — said the workshop was occasioned by revelations of the challenges that currently face various communities.

“There are many things happening across most sectors of the economy and we cannot deal with the problems by leaving individual sectors to deal with them on their own, but must involve all the other sectors that have to do with the situation in one way or the other,” she said.