The fight against most forms of nutrient deficiencies has been
strengthened, with the introduction of a plan to fortify maize meal and
bread flour with minerals and vitamins in rural settings.
Speaking with the ‘Daily News on Saturday,’ Tanzania Food and Nutrition Centre (TFNC) Managing Director, Mr Benedict Jeje, said a pilot project in Iringa, Arusha and Njombe regions which concentrated on small milling plants had started.
“After conducting an assessment, we started preparations for the fortification of maize flour since last year.
We have already trained service
providers and extension officers,” he said. Fortification is the
addition of specific amounts of one or more micronutrients (vitamins
and/or minerals) to food to improve the nutritional quality of the daily
meals the people consume.
The purpose of fortification is to
correct a recognised countrywide micronutrient deficiency.
Micronutrients are essential vitamins and minerals that are needed in
small amounts for various physiological functions, but which cannot be
made in sufficient quantities in the body.
Because the body cannot produce them
they must be provided regularly in food. Mr Jeje said take-off of the
operations would go hand-in-hand with the distribution and installation
of scoops or spoon-like utensils, that will be used for a debe or half a
debe of flour that will contain a pre-mixture of nutrients.
He revealed that the gadgets had already been imported and that the project was being supported by the World Bank.
The MD said that another rural
fortification programme was being conducted in Morogoro, Manyara and
Dodoma regions by Project Health Children from Nepal that had started by
using feeders or dosifiers, a simple gadget that is fixed on the mills,
adding that 30 of them had already been ordered for the three regions.
“The evaluation of the pilot project has
so far shown very positive signs and we are planning to scale it up in
the whole country. This will see an increase in the number of fortified
foods from wheat and oil to maize, sugar, cassava and salt,” he said.
Current statistics show that 42 per cent
of under-five children are stunted as a result of malnutrition while
six in 10 children are anaemic. Mr Jeje said malnutrition was a huge
problem in the country which called for urgent strategies to address it,
including focusing on food-based approaches.
Giving an example of the Vitamin A
supplementation programme which the government runs annually at a cost
of 300m/-, Mr Jeje said the figure could drastically be reduced if more
emphasis was put on orange-fleshed sweet potatoes (OFSP).
He said the fact that less than 75 per
cent of women visit clinics after delivery, it had been difficult for
the supplementation programme to attain 100 per cent coverage, making it
very expensive to sustain when funding was coming from development
partners.
“OFSP has the advantage of being both a
food and a cash crop. I say, let’s not rely on the Vitamin A tablet
supplementation. What is needed is agriculture that is
nutrition-sensitive,” he stressed.
Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security
and Cooperatives spokesperson, Dr Richard Kasuga, said during a media
sensitisation workshop on OFSP that the task of addressing nutrition
challenges in the country was for everyone.
Dr Kasuga said that unlike what many
people thought, the education problem that the nation was facing wasn’t
about teaching manuals or which ministers hold office, but rather the
fact that children were not being given the right foods in their first
1,000 days.
“It has reached a stage where there are
people saying that 40 per cent of Tanzanians do not think well. Now,
whether it is through madness or not, I cannot say, but one thing is for
sure – there is need to think differently on how to address our current
nutrition problems,” he said.
He was of the opinion that starting with
OFSP was the best option to address the challenges, adding that if
change started now things could be on track after 100 years and that a
delay would require 200 years.
Geita District Commissioner (DC), Mr
Manzie Mangochie, said he had for the past two years allocated 25m/-
from the council’s funds for the production of OFSP and another 545m/-
from the mining community.
Mr Mangochie said it was his firm belief
that the orange potato was the answer he was seeking in bridging most
health-related MDGs and maternal and child health complications most
cost-effectively and sustainably.
By MASEMBE TAMBWE, Tanzania Daily News
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