Nigeria pledges support to tackle global hunger

NIGERIA, on Sunday, pledged its support toward the push to tackle global hunger, ahead of the next Olympics in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.Dr Akinwumi Adesina, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, made the pledge at the Global Hunger Summit in London.The summit was organised by Mr David Cameron, British Prime Minister, as part of the activities to end the 2012 London Olympics, at 10, Downing Street.'Nigeria is delighted to lend support for the race to rapidly reduce malnutrition and child mortality around the world.'We (Nigeria) have strategy to win this race. We are working to expand food supply,' the Europe correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) quoted Adesina, as saying.He said Nigeria had launched an agricultural transformation agenda (ATA) to add 20 million tonnes of food by 2015.The minister said the agenda would focus on staple crops, fisheries and aqua-culture, livestock, diary, grain, legumes and vegetables, to diversify diets and improve nutrition.He explained that the 'Save One Million Lives,' a Federal Government initiative, targeted the use of community management of acute malnutrition and integrated child feeding to reduce under-nutrition in the country.According to him, already, 200,000 severely malnourished children were currently receiving care, adding that Nigeria had launched the national policy on food and nutrition with Vitamin A fortification of staple foods, sugar, wheat flour and vegetable oil sold on the market'This race is crucial for Nigeria with 27 per cent of children underweight; 12 per cent wasted; 37 per cent stunted. For these children, the race for survival must be completed in a window of 1,000 days,' he said.Earlier, Cameron had said the summit was aimed at finding new ways to tackle malnutrition and fostering innovation in biotechnology.He expressed the hope that for every 1 spent effectively tackling malnutrition, 30 of benefits was generated.
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