Seminar calls for using local crops for nutrition

Speakers said anemic women face extreme difficulties when they get married including complications in childbirth

SIBI: A seminar on Monday called for using indigenous crops – vegetable, fruits and grains – for fighting malnutrition among mothers and children in Kacchi District of Balochistan.

Balochistan’s provincial nutrition programme organized the one-day seminar on malnutrition in mothers and babies at district Dhadar’s Boys Middle High School with the support of UNICEF.

A stall on nutritional awareness was also set up at the seminar where vegetables and grains found in Kacchi were displayed. The participants were told about benefits of the crops – fruits, grains and vegetables – grown in Kacchi but not used in enough quantity by the locals.

“If appropriately consumed, these fruits and vegetables could bring an end to the problem of malnutrition but due to lack of awareness among the residents, these products are not properly utilized,” said one of the speakers.

The speakers said anemic women face extreme difficulties when they get married including complications in conceiving and childbirth. Due to extreme anemic conditions in women, the maternal and infant mortality rates in Balochistan have reached an alarming height.

The speakers said 52 per cent of the children in Balochistan face malnutrition. Such children cannot meet the challenges of life and compete with their well-fed counterparts.

With so many children on facing malnutrition, we are bound to see a society where we would not have any of our future generation to be productively engaged in medicine, science and other productive faculties, they said. 

Published in The Express Tribune, March 17^th, 2020.