700 households in SVG undernourished – FAO

It is estimated that the members of 700 households in St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) are undernourished.

This is according to United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) coordinator Dr Deep Ford, who addressed the issue at the signing ceremony of a project to support the implementation of the national zero hunger initiative action plan on Tuesday at the Ministry of Agriculture.{{more}}

Ford, however, noted that more than half of the persons that would have been classified as being undernourished in 1990 had moved out of the category by 2012. He said this accomplishment by SVG was recognized and celebrated at a global level when Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves attended a function hosted by director general of the FAO José Graziano da Silva in Rome.

The FAO coordinator said there continue to be pockets of poverty and areas where persons are undernourished.

“It is estimated some 700 households in St Vincent and the Grenadines …still remain, but need attention and this project is a contribution in this regard.”

According to Ford, the government is responsible for assisting in this regard, with the FAO playing a supplementary and complementary role.

He said that the FAO feels that those households that remain undernourished must be addressed directly. Therefore, backyard gardens, nutrition education and income earning opportunities are a very important part of the project.

Ford said that not only are there communities that are undernourished and need food security attention, but there are over nourished communities with obese and overweight members that also need attention.

To enable persons to make wise food choices, food-based dietary guidelines would be emphasized in the project, along with school feeding programmes.

“Let me say that these days, when we talk about school feeding programmes, we talk about a lot more than a hot meal at lunch time for a child. We’re talking about a school feeding programme that is based on local healthy products, not imported products that are highly processed and contribute to the nutrition problems that we’re trying to solve.”

Ford said nutrition education would also be included in the school feeding programmes so that students would grow up making better food choices, so that in decades to come, there would be fewer obesity problems than presently exist.(AS)