Inter-ministerial agric nutrition working group comes on stream

An inter-ministerial agriculture nutrition working group has been formally inaugurated by Akinwunmi Adesina, minister of agriculture and rural development. The inauguration of the working group took place recently at a high level policy dialogue meeting on Nutrition Sensitive Agriculture in Nigeria, held in Abuja.

Adesina, while inaugurating the group, tasked members on the need to work together and deliver on the assignment, in view of the serious efforts of the present administration in tackling the issue of malnutrition in Nigeria.

In a related development, the minister, during the meeting, was also presented with an award of excellence by the Nutrition Society of Nigeria for championing issues of nutrition in Nigeria.

Presenting the award to the minister, Ngozi Nnam, president, Nutrition Society of Nigeria, commended the minister on his efforts to improve nutrition in Nigeria and urged him to approve a week in the month of March of every year for the celebration of Nutrition Week.

The minister thanked the society for the award, saying “he sees himself as a small instrument but would like to dedicate the award to all the hardworking staff of his ministry, who have contributed immensely to all the successes recorded so far.”

Adesina also used the occasion to launch a snapshot publication on Cultivating Nutritious Food System, the first of the series, compiled by the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN).

The minister commended GAIN for the rich contents of the publication, which requires adults to pay more attention to what they eat and other enriching features as contained in the report. He thanked all the development partners for their support for the Agricultural Transformation Agenda programme of the present administration.