Preamble
The Nigerian Institute of Food Science and Technology (NIFST) 10th South East Regional Food Summit (ReFoST) and NIFST Day Celebration with the theme, “Food Scientific Innovations for Nutrition Security”, was attended by the representative of the Deputy Governor of Rivers State, representative of the Deputy Governor, Imo State and over 170 Conference delegates from the industry/Private sector, academia/research and government, students among others. The Chairman of the occasion was Prof. Chijioke Osuji (FNIFST, CFSN). The opening ceremony was held at Rento Hotels and Suites, Owerri, Imo State.
Objectives
The objectives of the 10th South East ReFoST were as follows:
1. Enlightenment of stakeholders in the food industries on the need to always ensure adherence with globally-accepted standards.
2. Pushing the implementation of food safety standards in all points along the food value chain.
3. Boosting synergism between NIFST and government/policy makers on areas of collaborations in the food industry, especially with regards to the development and adoption of scientific innovations for nutrition security.
4. Creating an environment for mentoring upcoming/future professionals, whilst charting a way forward for the next generation in the context of advancements in the field.
After extensive deliberations on the issues arising from the theme and focusing on promoting food scientific innovations, the participants made the following observations and recommendations:
Observations
1. Nigeria expends a lot of resources on the importation of various food commodities compared to what she earns from food exports.
2. The underproduction of food, wastage, or nutrition insecurity prevalent are associated with multiple factors ranging from obsolete agricultural practices,
poor level of mechanization, non-adoption of advanced scientific methods of food processing, packaging and preservation, amongst others.
3. There is a growing need to adopt scientific innovations for nutrition security in Nigeria.
4. The onboarding of improved scientific innovative methods will require urgent training and retraining of personnel to better deploy the upgraded technology for improved nutritional security of the population.
5. There are large numbers of viable research outputs that are yet to be commercialized or patented.
6. All stakeholders are presently not working in strong partnerships with the government to elevate the drive for food scientific innovations.
Recommendations
1. There needs to be concerted efforts by the government geared towards conserving scarce foreign exchange by cutting down on food importation, whilst channeling resources and expertise towards improved production for food exportation.
2. The Federal Government should look inwards and adopt technological innovations to scale up food production, as well as address processing, preservation and distribution challenges to improve food security and, by extension, nutritional security.
3. The adoption of scientific innovations for nutrition security should be the new watchword in Nigeria by relevant stakeholders and value addition to locally sourced food produce should be upheld.
4. Budgetary provisions for training and retraining of personnel to better deploy the disruptive technology for improved nutritional security of the population should be made to actualise the benefits of such an audaciously progressive course of action.
5. The bottlenecks preventing patenting of research discoveries should be addressed and research outputs should not end of shelves, but transit to commercialization.
6. Sustained and restored collaboration among key stakeholders including industries, Ministry of Agriculture, Higher Educational Institutions, Research Institutions among others in delivering products that meet global standards.
Godswill Elemuo
Public Relations Officer
NIFST, Southeast Chapter