Peter Tanyanyiwa Suburban Reporter
Organisers of the Zimbabwe Food and Seed Festival say all is set for the 2023 edition which begins September 29 and runs until September 30, 2023 at the Harare Botanical Gardens.
The event is being coordinated by PELUM Zimbabwe and Bio Innovation Zimbabwe.
The festival is running under the theme, “Celebrating the wonder of Zimbabwean millets.”
The PELUM Association will join in the celebration by supporting more than 20 participants from eight African countries to participate in the Food and Seed Festival.
Several stakeholders are expected to join the festival to promote healthy eating and support small-scale farmers to trade and exchange diverse farm saved seeds of high quality and seed knowledge.
PELUM Zimbabwe encouraged Harare residents to participate in the festival of indigenous seeds and traditional foods.
Recently, Harare residents were encouraged to carefully watch their diet as some of the foods they are consuming make them vulnerable to life threatening diseases.
The call was made at the launch of the “My Food is African campaign”, which is also spearheaded by PELUM Zimbabwe under the auspices of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA).
My “Food is African campaign” has two goals, to bring attention to Zimbabwe’s traditional foods, seeds, and cuisines and influence political decision-making on diets.
The organiser of the campaign in Zimbabwe Ms Bertha Nherera said that the campaign’s goal is to promote traditional meals and cuisines.
“Traditionally, our diet was nutritious and diverse. Over the years, however, particularly after the colonisation of Zimbabwe, most people have ditched the African cuisines, diets and dishes that made up our traditional food systems in favour of processed, and in some cases, foreign cuisines, diets and dishes.
“This dramatic shift in diet is mainly a result of the dominance of the Green Revolution agenda and a lack of recognition of the value of indigenous traditional food in Zimbabwe’s agriculture and food systems,” said Ms Nherera.
The PELUM-led campaign is targeting a number of actions to promote traditional foods, including reviewing the procurement regulations.
Zimbabwe is among the 13 African countries including Zambia, Malawi, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania that are pushing the My Food is African campaign.
