adminFreedom Mutanda
CHIPINGE District Administrator, Mr Edgars Seenza last Thursday launched the traditional food fair at Rimbi High School where he challenged people to grow small grains in order to beat the climate changes that threaten next year’s harvest.Speaking at the occasion, Mr Seenza, said: “Accessibility to food security for everyone is uppermost in our minds as Government. The weather people have predicted a short rainy season which maybe a prelude to drought. We have to plant small grains that mature early.
‘’Nutritionists urge us to eat healthily. Lifestyle diseases such as diabetes can be lowered if we revert to the eating of traditional food. Twenty-one percent of deaths in Zimbabwe in 2012 were due to non-communicable diseases. If we eat traditional foods, the percentage can be lowered. 31.4 percent of children in Chipinge are said to have stunted growth. Eating traditional food is the way to go as they don’t have additives and they are also nourishing.
“When we go back home, let us promote traditional food. Very soon, mazhanje will be in season. Let us harvest them. The traditional chicken routinely called the road-runner, I am told is healthy. Is it difficult to rear your own road-runner which is cost effective anyway?” said Mr Seenza.
Chipinge Rural District Council deputy chairperson, Cde Busangangabanye, said: “We have to go out there and exhort people to eat traditional food. You must be the person in the Bible who used his talents. We expect to see gardens sprouting all over the district. The gardens must have traditional crops. Too often, attendees of these workshops are not doers of what they would have learned. That must stop,” he pleaded with the people in attendance.
A World Vision representative, Mr Benson Mhashu, said research had shown that babies born with HIV faced challenges when they grew up owing to various factors.
“Research shows that babies struggle health-wise until they reach the age of two. It is primarily because of nutrition deficiencies that they have such problems. It is important to note that Government and its development partners such as World Vision, Care International, Safire, Icrisat, SNV and Plan International are aware that local food is good for children. I know blackjack is associated with poverty, but nothing is further from the truth. The above development partners run under ENSURE-Enhancing Nutrition Stepping Up Resilience and Enterprise-as they join the district food and Nutrition Committee to encourage people to eat traditional food,’’ he said.
The fair was attended by traditional leaders among them Chiefs Musikavanhu and Mahenye, headmen Dumisai and Mukwakwami. They were led to the show room where different traditional dishes and mealie- meal were on show.
Online Reporter