By Md. Ohidur Rahman from Netrakona
Safe food is the right of all living beings. But today all foods are not safe. Adultery foods are abundant in the markets. Consuming adultery foods cause different diseases to human bodies. Therefore, there is a need to produce safe food and people should abandon the adultery foods. Assistant Agriculture officer Md. Al Amin, journalist Khusru Khan and Ripon Mia, Sabana Marak and other 170 men, women and children. At the fair, indigenous woman Mithali Dibra introduced the children to the food at the fair stalls and advised them to use their home gardens for safe food production.
In order to create awareness among the communities about the unsafe foods and encourage them to develop family or homestead garden for growing toxic, chemical free foods Adommya Bangladesh, Netrakona Sammilito youth groups, Sannyashipara villagers and BARCIK recently jointly organized a “Food Diversity and Seed Diversity fair” in Kalmakanda of Netrakona district. Indigenous men, women, children and people of different occupations participated in the fair where they got familiar with different foods and crop seeds being displayed in the fair.
In the fair, women display indigenous food, uncultivated safe food, non-toxic safe fruits of hills and plains, vegetables, paddy, pulses and oilseeds. The indigenous women participating in the fair said that they consume arum, roots of bamboo (known as Kurol in Bangla), plaintain flower, Potato and red and green spinaches such as Dhekishak, Bathuashak, Gimai Shak, Olakchu, Shumuk, Kuichcha, Kasaba. Besides, that they also displayed 31 types of seeds of different crops, rice, pulse, bitter gourd, beans and other uncultivated food plants in the fair.
In the discussion, Marshall Mankhin, a senior farmer and indigenous people’s leader of the village, said, “Women are the artisans of safe food production and seed conservation. Still women produce safe food with their own hands and give it to their children.”
However, women and children hold some placards and festoons during the fair with awareness messages to grow safe foods for all. The messages of the placards and festoons were “Safe food, safe life” “Safe food for all life”, “We want a poison free childhood”, “Safe food is our right”, “Stop food pollution”, “Don’t put adultery food in the mouth of children in the name of food”, etc. At the end of the event, the participants were awarded with agricultural materials encouraging them to start developing family garden for safe food production.
Translated by Silvanus Lamin