FY2024 GFN Annual Report Nourshing People and Planet - Flipbook - Page 33
The moms in the morning program
received citrus from the farm, with the
remainder loaded up in the afternoon for
distribution to a fishing community on
an island off of coastal Lagos. Volunteers
helped move hundreds of boxes of food
and accompanying bags of produce by
truck and then boat to the fishing village.
With “the fish not coming like before,” Juliet
Akwa, one of the recipients, expressed her
happiness at receiving the food staples and
produce for her two children, a boy and a
girl, aged 3 and 7.
While produce recovery from farms offers all
the satisfying benefits of reducing waste and
simultaneously addressing food insecurity,
Sunday Olufemi, the manager of the farm,
underscored perhaps the biggest upside to
putting nutritious fresh food into the hands
of people in vulnerable situations. It has to
do with food being “an essential aspect of
life,” he said. “There is a saying,” he noted,
“that you ought to be paying farmers, not
your doctor. Your food is your health.”
Lagos Food Bank Initiative added a
cold storage room to its warehouse to
keep the produce fresh until it can be
distributed, as well as solar-powered
electricity and a backup generator
to support it. Extra racking to store
the produce and a refrigerated van to
transport it were also added. Michael
Sunbola, president and executive
director of LFBI, said he expects to
collect about 3,000 to 4,000 pounds
of fresh produce (about 1,500 to 2,000
kilograms) for every trip the food bank
makes to recover surplus produce.
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