A Special Seats Member of Parliament, Hon. Neema Lungangira, visited IITA at its Eastern Africa regional headquarters in Dar es salaam, Tanzania, on 26 September, at the invitation of Leena Tripathi, the Eastern Africa Hub Director.
The Honorable MP was received by Tripathi and senior members of IITA staff and Amos Omore, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) representative for Eastern and Southern Africa housed at IITA-Tanzania.
The team held a brief meeting to identify mutual areas of interest for collaboration. These included addressing food safety, malnutrition, and stunting in the country—major areas of concern for the MP.
“I fail to understand how Tanzania, which is food self-sufficient, also has very high levels of malnutrition and stunting in children. This means while we are food secure, we are definitely not nutrition secure. My concern then is how to promote nutrition-sensitive agriculture,” Hon. Lugangira said.
Lungangira said she is addressing this challenge through her organization Agri Thamani Foundation, which she founded two years ago. Hon. Mzingo Pinda, Tanzania’s former Prime Minister, chairs the Foundation.
Lungangira also chairs the parliamentary caucus on food safety that she founded in this parliamentary session to champion issues around food safety. She is also a national champion for food systems.
The IITA team highlighted the Institute’s effort to tackle food safety and nutrition through the breeding of biofortified crops, promoting legumes, introducing new nutritious recipes, and addressing aflatoxin contamination.
Amos also shared ILRI’s research to increase milk production as a sure way to address malnutrition in the country.
The MP was impressed with the range of research going on at IITA and requested support in building the capacity of the parliamentary caucus on food safety.
“IITA has many years of working experience on food security and food safety, and building capacity is a key aspect of our work. Therefore, we look forward to working together to build the capacity of the caucus, and we welcome them to our offices here in Dar es Salaam,” Tripathi said.
Tripathi also thanked the MP for creating time even on a Sunday to visit the Institute and said the discussions would continue to cement the collaboration between the MP, Agri-Thamani Foundation, and the parliamentary caucus on food safety.
Lungangira toured the research facilities at the hub, including the molecular and plant pathology labs, where research on cassava virus disease and aflatoxin is ongoing. In the food science lab, she was introduced to some of IITA’s work on postharvest and nutrition through the Africa RISING project in the soil lab, and the Afya soil kits that the labs produce to make soil testing affordable.
The visit is part of efforts by the hub director to increase the visibility of the institution in the region to partners.
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