Busia livestock, crop officers undergo training to boost service delivery

_{By Busia County Press}

To promote healthy eating habits in the community, the Department of Agriculture through the Kenya Livestock Commercialization Project (KELCOP) whose goal is to empower the community on nutrition food, and income security, on Wednesday completed a four-day training for the 16 Busia County livestock and crop officers on healthy eating.

According to Mr. Radoli Shiundu the Busia County project coordinator, the project is in forwards in Busia including Elugulu, Namboboto, Amukura East, and Bunyala to promote nutrition as one of the pillars they undertake targeting women and youths below 18 years.

“Being that nutrition is one of the pillars of the project now that it’s cutting across the gender transformative, we are targeting women and youths on nutritional matters to improve the nutrition security for the community members,” said Mr. Shiundu.

He revealed that the project is proposing to embark on capacity building and awareness creation to the community besides working with communities on improving their nutrition security by setting up production units including the kitchen gardens.

“What we want to do is to make sure that our farmers can feed themselves and also produce enough for the market and upon empowering them economically they will make choices on what they can eat, and what is nutritious instead of eating what is delicious,” adding, “At the end of the day we want to make sure that we deal with healthy handling of foodstuff to address the issue of stunted growth.”

The Teso South Kelcop coordinator Ms. Louse Akinyi and also one of those who benefited from the training noted that she is going to share the knowledge she gained with other groups in her area of operation on how to eat healthy and use locally available material to earn a living adding that, the way most people prepare and eat food is bad and unhealthy.