HarvestPlus, ICRISAT, LCRI Unveil Iron Rich Varieties Millets In Kano.
Millets
By Musa Abdulkadir
Kano , HarvestPlus in conjunction with the International Crops Research Institute, and Lake Chad Research Institute on Thursday unveiled two iron rich pearl millets in Kano.
The first biofortified varieties initiative build on scaling efforts in India, where the number of farming households growing iron pearl millets jumped 395 percent since 2021.
HarvestPlus developed, and promote biofortified food crops that are rich in vitamins, and minerals thereby providing leadership on biofortification evidence, and technology
Briefing newsmen at the event, Country Director, HarvestPlus Nigeria, Dr. Yusuf Dollah, explained that HarvestPlus is exploiting the initiative to champion food transformation in Africa.
He said the product named Jirano, and chakti are the first biofortified varieties of pearl millets to be released in Africa continent.
He lamented that climate votality in northern Nigeria has led to decreased crop yields, and nutrients in some of the staples, adding that increased food prices, and heightened food insecurity has worsened cases of malnutrition.
” Smallholder farmers are also looking for opportunities to bridge production yield gap brought about by climate stress through improved agricultural technologies like nutrient enriched seeds”,he said
He however assured that ” as an affordable dietary source of iron in the region, iron enriched varieties of pearl millet like chakti and jirani can improve nutrition for millions of farming households providing up to 80 percent of daily iron needs when eating regularly.
In a speech earlier, the Country Representative,
Lake Chad Research Institute, Professor Baba Gana Jugudum, expressed optimism that the varieties would add value to end users.
He said that they would soon release more varieties that are going to specific to food system transformation.
