SHANNISE DZOBO
HARARE – Participatory Ecological Land Use Management (PELUM) in conjunction with Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) is pushing a continental campaign of “My Food is African” being implemented in 13 African countries including Zimbabwe.
This campaign supports the Zimbabwe National Strategy and Action Plan for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture and the draft Zimbabwe Food and Nutrition Security Strategy.
Small scale African farmers being supported by non-governmental organisations are urging people in Africa to consume more indigenous foods so as to improve their nutrition.
This was said at a media engagement held in Harare recently.
The engagement was coordinated by PELUM Zimbabwe and AFSA running under the theme “My Food is African!’.
Getrude Pswarayi-Jasbon, PELUM Zim country coordinator said that the shift of diets has taken a toll on the health and nutrition of Zimbabweans on both ends of the malnutrition spectrum.
“The shift in diets has taken a toll on our health and nutrition as Zimbabweans and statistically 26.6% of children under the age of 5 years suffer from stunting linked to poor dietary diversity while 35% of adult women and 12% of men are overweight or obese”, said Pswarayi-Jasbon.
“The intersection of diets and farming systems is unquestionable as Zimbabwe battles to cope with the effects of climate change soil degradation, biodiversity loss, non-communicable diseases like cancer, hypertension, sugar diabetes type 2 amongst others”.
She went on to mention that a shift in diets and farming systems directly impacts on farmers’ rights to save, use, exchange and sell farm-saved seed and propagation materials and it also impacts on the right to food and the right to health.
Bertha Nherera from AFSA also added that before the colonisation of our diet we had food that was compatible to our DNA but due to a lot of changes this has left the whole population vulnerable to a lot of nutritional issues.
“Before the colonisation of our diets we had foods that were compatible with our DNA but by the coming in of customised and foreign foods a lot has come with that, now we have non-communicable diseases and a whole lot that can be avoided by just domesticating our food and promoting our own traditional cuisines which are compatible with our bodies”, said Nherera.
PELUM Zim and AFSA are calling for a review of procurement regulations by the Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe(PRAZ) so that government institutions such as hospitals and boarding schools can be able to buy traditional food directly from both small and large scale farmers thereby making the food more affordable and accessible.
They are also calling for schools and hospitals to review their diets/menus so as to include traditional foods to make it more diverse and accessible and also for schools to form clubs for cooking and demonstration of traditional foods.
The Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (ZIMVAC) form is also being called to be reviewed to incorporate more traditional foods and also all local authorities are called to improve the infrastructure of mass markets in the country so that they have improved access roads, drainage, toilets and clean market spaces for the farmers.
Ministry of Agriculture is being called to start domesticating a variety of traditional vegetables and fruits grown using agroecological practices and also to promote farmers exchange and sell their seed freely across the country without limitations to a radius of 40km within their locality.
The campaign was launched by Dr George Kembo, Director General of the Food and Nutrition Council of Zimbabwe in September 2022 at the National Seed Festival at Harare Botanical Gardens on the backdrop of raising awareness on importance of consuming local traditional diets and promoting indigenous health awareness associated with Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (PGRFA).
