By HELEN ZULU –
HARVESTPLUS is targeting to provide orange maize for 100,000 farmers in the country by 2015.
HarvestPlus country manager for Zambia Eliab Simpungwe said the company had so far provided orange maize for more than 10,000 farming households and its goal was to reach 100,000 by 2015.
Mr Simpungwe said the Zambia was the first to release orange maize varieties in Africa adding that it had supported HarvestPlus in its efforts to provide orange maize to more than 10,000 farming households.
“Our goal is now to reach 100,000 famers by 2015. The orange maize has been bred specifically for human consumption.
It is not the same as yellow maize which is popularly used as animal feed. When consumers have had a chance to taste orange nshima, they prefer it to white nshima and when they also understand the benefits of Vitamin A, they become more enthusiastic about orange maize,” he said.
Mr Simpungwe said orange maize varieties released were also high yielding, disease and virus resistant, as well as drought tolerant.
He said the Zambian government had officially recognised biofortification, which had been included in the National Food and Nutrition Strategic Plan for Zambia 2011-2015.
And National Food and Nutrition Commission in Zambia acting executive director Musonda Mofu said there were still many parts in the country where Vitamin-A deficiency remained a problem.
Mr Mofu said food-based approaches such as orange maize could provide people especially women and children with a good portion of their daily Vitamin A needs through nshima or other traditional foods made from maize that Zambians eat every day.
“For us, this is cost-effective and a safe approach to improving nutrition,” he said.
A new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition Found that orange maize improved Vitamin A Levels in Children.
Lead scientist Sherry Tanumihardjo said the study established that ‘orange’ Vitamin A maize increases Vitamin A storage in the body.
He said the lack of sufficient Vitamin A blinded up to 500,000 children annually and increased the risk of death from disease such as diarrhoea in children.
HarvestPlus is a global leader in biofortification, a novel strategy to reduce ‘hidden hunger’ in developing countries.