Plea to promote home-grown foods consumption

Tina Musonza

Herald Correspondent

Traditional foods must be on sale in all marketplaces so that people eat healthy food, as opposed to eating genetically modified food.

The Participatory Ecological Land Use Management Zimbabwe (PELUM), in calling on the Government to make it mandatory to have these foods in all market places, said traditional foods had more nutritional value than most modern foods.

This comes after Zimbabwe has been recognised as a leading country in championing consumption of African foodstuffs among 13 countries that were in the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa.

My Food is African is a campaign among initiatives of Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa that is aimed at boosting Africans’ consumption of traditional food in all involved countries which include Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi, Rwanda, Senegal, DRC, Uganda, Ethiopia, Nigeria among others.

Traditional grains are indigenous to Africa and were the staple diet until maize, a central American grain, became available as it moved up along trade routes from the coast.

But even then, it was not until the 1920s that traditional grains started losing traction to maize. Besides the grains, there are wide range of indigenous fruits and vegetables that can be added to diets.

While processed traditional grains are now available, they are still marketed as an expensive product and while readily available in upmarket shops, they are frequently not found lower down the retail ladder.

At the “My Food is African” briefing in Harare on Thursday last week, country coordinator Ms Bertha Nherera said traditional grains such as finger millet and sorghum were rich in nutrients.

“There has been a gap in the market and I think we can have a place where we can sell traditional foods with quality and affordable prices,” she said. “The major challenge is that traditional foods are limited in supermarkets and this has resulted in a narrow consumption.

“If we can have traditional food in upmarket places it will increase the access. We want traditional food to just pass from smallholder farmers and be packed so that we cut the retailing process which has been limiting access.”

Ms Nherera said smallholder farmers were doing well and they had to be provided with machinery to do their work easily.

There was need to promote the inclusion of the indigenous grains such as finger millet and sorghum as the staple foods.

Ms Nherera said Zimbabwe was making milestones in promoting consumption of traditional food though there was a need to bridge gaps.

“Zimbabwe has been leading and for us at a high political level. Our first lady Dr Auxilia Mnangagwa has been leading in promoting the traditional foods. We have an enabling environment at a high level,” she said.

She said people had to change their behaviour and start consuming traditional food which had advantages of increasing life span and maintaining good health.

“We have to be aware that our vegetables such as black jack (mutsine), mowa and other traditional vegetables are rich in iron nutrients,” she said.

Consumer Council of Zimbabwe chief executive officer Ms Rosemary Chikarakara said consumers were facing high prices of traditional food.

“We had a food systems dialogue with the Ministry of Agriculture and we noticed consumers have a positive attitude in consumption of traditional food but they are expensive. This has resulted in reduction of traditional food in supermarkets that have them,” she said.

There was a need to promote production and affordable small grains to increase access and consumption.

Ms Chikarakara urged smallholder farmers to adopt quality packaging to attract customers who were influenced by food packaging.

Knowledge Transfer Africa chief executive officer, Mr Charles Dhewa, said people had to make use of the diversity of traditional food.

“Our food system needs attention. After colonisation infiltrated our food systems, we still have a diversity of food. We have hundreds of commodities with each community in Zimbabwe having diverse food and it needs support,” said Mr Dhewa

Food was part of heritage that should be embraced to safeguard cultural norms and values.