In order to highlight the importance of nutrition and sustainable food security among the new-born child, a one-day seminar organised by Citizen Rights & Sustainable Development (CRSD) in collaboration with Action Aid Pakistan held today here in a local hotel at Peshawar.
Theme of the seminar was "Sustainable Food Systems for Food security and nutrition in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa" where Deputy Director Food Department KPK Asmatullah Khan was chief guest on the occasion.
While talking to the participants Deputy Director Food Department said our productions are not sufficient for our requirements but Food department is working to make the people aware about the insufficiency and insecurity in this territory. He further said the iron level in new-born children is very low in the province and for that the Food directorate is working on "Iron Purification Programme". "Sold iodization is another programme where we are making awareness in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa especially in Mountainous areas" the Deputy Director added.
On this occasion Director CRSD Zar Ali Khan said the Food insecurity and Nutrition is the main problem of our province. "Our province is not producing the food quantity what we need and for that we are importing our food products from Punjab which is subsidised. We need to have proper storage also in our province to make our province secure in food," Zar Ali added. At this occasion Professor Dr Said Wahab Chairman Department of Food Sciences and Technology Agriculture University Peshawar also present his research upon the secure-ness to the participants and pointed out the reasons of food insecurity in the Province. He suggested that these kinds of programme should also be held at village level.
Action Aid Pakistan Programme Officer Pervaiz Ansari was also present on this occasion. He said food is necessary to every human but it should be proper in quantity and quality. He further said 56.2% of the KPK residents are in food insecure stage which is alarming.
All the participants also presented their suggestions on this occasion for protecting the province from food insecurity which will be sent to the food department and food directorate for the implementations. At the end the Agriculturist Allah Daad Khan, Deputy Director CRSD Taimur Kamal, Imran Ashna and Shafeeq Gigyani also spoke on the occasion.