14 Countries to benefit from $800,000 FAO fund
Ghana and 13 other countries in West and East Africa are to benefit from an $800,000 fund from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), for the cultivation of quinoa, a cereal of South American origin.
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The assistance, which is a technical cooperation programme, is to help ascertain the agro-ecological adaptability of the crop in the beneficiary countries.
The other countries are Niger, Burkina Faso, Togo, Senegal, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Uganda, Chad, Cameroon and Zambia.
Quinoa, according to the FAO, offered an alternative for countries facing the challenge of food insecurity, particularly in view of climate change.
The FAO Deputy Regional Representative for Africa, Dr Lamourdia Thiombiano, who announced the programme at a workshop at Dodowa yesterday, said the benefits of the crop had been established, adding that there was evidence of its potential to reduce hunger and poverty, as well as its importance as an essential source of nutrition.
Global demand
Global demand for the crop, according to Dr Thiombiano, who is also the FAO Country Representative to Ghana, had risen in recent years as “a result of its super food nature and desirable traits. Thus quinoa is classified as a plant that offers all essential amino acids, trace elements and vitamins in a healthy balance and it is also gluten free. “
As demand for the crop soars, its commodity price reached $3,200 per tonne in 2013, he added.
The crop can also be cooked, added to soups, used as a cereal, made into pasta and even fermented for the production of beer. When cooked, it takes on a nut-like flavour.
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A Ghanaian chef with the Forest Hotel at Dodowa prepared pastries for participants of the workshop, using the cereal.
Challenges
Dr Thiombiano, however, noted that the cultivation of the crop was “challenged by the availability of suitable seeds and most importantly, lack of technical know-how whereas marketing and utilisation are hampered by its unfamiliarity.”
It is in the light of those challenges that the training workshop was organised to build the capacity at the country level, to develop and support quinoa initiatives in selected countries in West Africa.
The participants in the five-day programme would, therefore, treat topics including improved quinoa production techniques, seed production and maintenance, harvest and post-harvest management of quinoa and the development of quinoa recipes.
In a speech read on his behalf, the deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr Ahmed Yakubu Alhassan, said he was optimistic that quinoa would do well in the country’s five ecological zones.
He commended the FAO for introducing the crop and urged participants to help develop recipes from the crop to make its adoption and use easy.