Local food – like sesame, tamarind and certain leaves – is a vital tool in the fight against malnutrition, say aid workers training families in northern Burkina Faso.
Communities who know the nutritional value of local food, and have the means to conserve and use it, are far less vulnerable, say the NGO Eau Vive and local health workers.
“Nutritional foods are all around us, right here,” said Balima Léopold, health worker in the town of Dori, northern Burkina, who has worked with Eau Vive to show villagers how to incorporate locally available ingredients into meals. “For example, there are leaves rich in vitamin A for making a good sauce for children.”
Health workers train local women in making porridge fortified with foods including tamarind, soumbala (a local bean), fish and baobab fruit, Koné Blandine, a midwife and nutrition trainer in nearby Gorom-Gorom, told IRIN. The women in turn teach fellow villagers. Eau Vive also shows people how to get the most nutritional value out of milk from their livestock.
“A lot of milk is produced in the Sahel region [where most families raise animals] from July to September,” Eau Vive country director Juste Hermann Nansi told IRIN. “But most people discard any surplus for lack of a way to conserve it.” The NGO – as part of a three-year “sustainable food security” project funded by the European Union – is teaching villagers to make a cheese that keeps longer than milk and provides a nutritious supplement to meals.
Local products properly conserved can help improve the nutritional value of meals particularly during the dry season, said Maïmouna Sanon/Traoré with the European Union in Burkina. “The use of local foods is appropriate in Burkina’s Sahel region because they are at hand, adapted to people’s eating habits and accessible to the most vulnerable… The ultimate goal is to prevent malnutrition.”
Read more of the story here at the IRIN news service:
BURKINA FASO: Vital role for local food
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