Food and nutrition security of smallholders in cassava, sweet potatoes, sorghum, amaranth grain, and AIVs.
I would like to add my voice to this discussion as it comes to closure.
Indigenous knowledge systems in the aspect of food need to be preserved continously for future generations to tap into them. We also have migrations or change of context due to employment, or cultural tourists who would be interested in sampling traditional foods of different communities. This may lead to economic gains for the indigenous host and enables social integration and allows learning, fantasy and discovery and eventual acculturation of individuals or groups. This process of cross cultural adoption enables people to perceive, figure out the relative advantage of the food, compare the food they are experiencing with their own existing belief and value systems through various stages such as observations over time in the process of acculturation so as to reduce ethnic discrimination, figure out the complexity involved in the preparation, the symbolic and cultural perspective of the different foods and the enjoyment of the culture together with the other codes and cluster of attributes that go with the context within which indigenous foods are experienced and enjoyed through the subject-object interaction.
Thank you.
Dear Forum members,
I would like to share my experience as a case study for your thoughts.
When l was growing up, my siblings and l enjoyed a good variety of fruits such as gooseberries and wildberries and other wild fruits from the forest woods. There were also loquats, guavas, and sweet bananas too. We climbed over the trees and reached onto the bushes and had unlimited access to fruits of all kinds. Little did we know that we were contributing to our own nutrition security which enabled us to get all the micronutrients, calories, and antioxidants, all necessary for good health, cognitive and physical development.. This also gave us reason to mingle with neighbouring children, make friends and develop our psychomotor skills. I look back and thank the times when forests were real and fruit trees were part of the culture of object-people relationships. We bonded with the bushes and the trees as we carefully picked fallen wood fuel sticks from the woods to take home to our mother to make the next meal. We looked forward to going back to the woods more often than not. All this is no more. I have recently embarked on rebuilding this experience for todays children to experience this wealthy and healthy cultural experience. It is important to rebuild diversity and conserve forests and practice agrofruitistry for the sake of both urban and rural children. Keep children healthy by providing for them creative ways of growing up and linking and gaining from the environment that they live in, educating them why it is important, for a sustainable ecosystems approach.
Greetings,
I wish to contribute to this interesting topic.
Dr. Violet Kadenyeka Mugalavai
The University of Eldoret, formerly Chepkoilel University College is in a Peri-urban set-up and we have developed a value chain which shortens the distance between producer, vendor and consumer of vegetables, fruits and cereals for the sorrounding community, including the student population. This lessens costs on transport for both producer and street vendor and makes commodities more affordable whilst lessening the loss of nutrients and that may occur due to excessive postharvest handling, and shortens the carbon loop. The sellers feed their waste back into the University gardening project in which students from the sorrounding schools participate in producing, processing, packaging and selling of produce the vendors. The consumers enjoy the products which are hygienically made and the demand is very high, necessitating an expansion of the project.