Worried by the inflation of various food prices, a growing baby and toddler food solutions company, Augustsecrets, has called for a more robust agricultural policy to help drive down the accessibility and affordability of food. The firm also urged families to apply creative ways and methods to be able to manage the situation.
Augustsecrets Chief Executive Officer, Oluwatoyin Onigbanjo, made these calls at the weekend at the Nigeria’s first nutrition summit held in Lagos.
The summit aims to equip parents, career professionals, dieticians, nutritionists, childcare professionals, among others with vital knowledge of incorporating African super foods into their children’s diets.
Onigbanjo stated that once families can apply creative approaches to manage food inflation, and the agricultural policy is there, then there are chances to advocate for the value addition to food crops in the country and there will be a high rate of food importation.
She noted that food doesn’t have to be expensive for it to be healthy for consumption.
“Our own local foods from our locust beans, our Egusi, some of these things are high in price already but when we apply a more creative approach to our feeding, it will help families to be able to manage the affordability and access to nutrition. Sometimes when you look around in your house, there is no meat, fish to add to your children’s food, but you have crayfish there and then you overlook and say there is no meat and fish then the food is not nutritious and you forget that crayfish and locust beans have a high rate of nutrient, it’s nutrient dense for you to feed your child and even for an adult,” she said.
Onigbanjo further reminded everyone of the impact of nutrition on daily productivity both at family, local and federal level.
“They have to be reminded of what they have to be able to embrace our own local foods,” she said.
CEO and founder of Diet 234, Collins Akanno lamented that malnutrition is a very serious problem in the country calling for a collective effort from everyone to contribute to fight out malnutrition in Nigeria.
His words: “It’s not a failure of policies is actually a failure from our collective ways in championing healthy nutrition in our children and it is an important thing for us to do because our children are the future and if we are going to make a brighter future for them we need to nourish them.
“Nutrition is very important in raising children who will thrive because in the first one thousand days is what we call the critical window period, it starts from when conception happens up until when that child is about two years old, if they don’t have the right nutrition, their physical growth will be hampered and also their community development will be imbed and it’s also going to affect their immune function, so it’s important that we champion that especially.”