CEFTER Congress Vows to Promote African Indigenous Food

Gilbert Ekugbe

The Africa Center of Excellence for Food Technology and Research (CEFTER) has stated that the second edition of its congress scheduled to hold from November 28 to December 2, 2022, in Abuja, is expected to promote African indigenous foods.

The CEFTER said that the focus of this year’s congress tagged “Upscaling and Promotion of African Indigenous Foods (AIF),” jointly organised by CEFTER, Benue State University and the Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria (ARCN) would spotlight African indigenous foods that have been neglected, poorly preserved and grossly undesutilized, despite their crucial roles in food security nutrition, medicinal values, and income generation to mankind.

It said: “These crops are ready alternatives to common staples, but remain largely unknown to the public. The promotion of these indigenous crops for food, especially among the rural dwellers, will not only sustainably combat hunger in Africa, but can gain inclusiveness in global food system,” the statement said.

The statement added that the congress’ overall goal is to bring together private and public participants as well as all stakeholders, particularly in West and Central Africa, to develop roadmap through research and policy options to improve production and processing, value addition, utilisation and marketing of African indigenous foods and for its inclusion in the food systems.

The statement added that the specific objectives of the congress are geared towards accessing the production practices of African indigenous foods and improving their genetic composition, rapid propagation and good yield, improving post-harvest techniques of these foods through research into value addition and utilisation.

The subthemes of the congress would include the challenges and opportunities in the production of African indigenous foods; storage and packaging technologies for African indigenous foods; bringing African indigenous foods to the global table using innovative processing approaches, strengthening the medicinal and nutritional benefits of African indigenous foods to promote public health; the role of market information system in promoting the utilisation of African indigenous foods and safety and quality standards issues in promoting African indigenous foods.