Nigeria: Global recognition for Nigerian fruits, vegetables
Aworh stressed that in Nigeria and other African countries, hundreds of little-known indigenous crops that contribute to food security and play vital roles in people's nutrition, particularly the rural populace, exist. He pointed out that in the humid tropics of southern Nigeria, a wide variety of wild indigenous fruits and vegetables enrich the diet of the rural populace.
He said: "These lesser-known crops of considerable horticultural and nutritional significance are available at certain critical periods of the year, when the more common sources are very scarce or completely unavailable. These crops thrive with little care and without the use of costly agricultural inputs such as fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. They provide valuable nutrients, especially vitamins and minerals that are vital for good health and wellness. In many localities, especially in the rural areas, they are the most common and relatively abundant sources of ascorbic acid (vitamin C), folic acid (especially green leafy vegetables) and provitamin A carotenoids and are comparable with their temperate counterparts such as spinach, broccoli, cabbage, lettuce and celery as sources of these essential nutrients."
Aworh also highlighted research done in Nigeria on value-added processing of lesser-known indigenous Nigerian fruits, including the production of fruit juices and beverages from "agbalumo", "iyeye", "ucha koro", roselle ("isapa") and tamarind ("tsamiyar").
"SMEs constitute 90 per cent of the number of food processing companies in the European Union and they are vital to rural development. Removing the constraints to the development of small-scale food industries in Nigeria, which include inadequate infrastructure, especially electricity, use of inappropriate technology, lack of spare parts for equipment, poor management, inadequate working capital and limited access to banks and other financial institutions, high interest rates and low profit margins, would facilitate commercial production of these value-added food products in rural communities, thereby reducing post-harvest food losses, promoting food security, enhancing small farmers' income and contributing to sustainable rural development."
Source: allafrica.com
