TURA: A food festival on Mid Day Meal was recently organized by the North East Slow Food and Agro-biodiversity Society (NESFAS) team from West Garo Hills at Megonggre SSA LP School near Tura.
West Garo Hills Deputy Commissioner, Ram Singh was the Chief Guest on the occasion and also participated in the agro-biodiversity walk that took place early in the morning.
Speaking on the occasion, the Deputy Commissioner said that though Garo Hills is rich in diversity, women and children continue to suffer from Anaemia. In order to reduce cases of anaemia, the DC urged the people to increase consumption of traditional foods and to abstain from using cooking soda in foods.
Around 40 students, from three schools, participated in the ABD walk and identified 15 species of food plants. Ram Singh, who also participated during ABD walk collected wild edibles from Megonggre community to motivate cooks to use local resources as a part of the mid-day meal in school.
As part of the food fest, a cooking competition was also organized in which MDM cooks from various schools like Ganol A’pal, Ganol Songma and Megonggre participated. Later, prizes were handed over to the winning cooks by competition judges Dr Meril N Sangma (NESFAS Board member) and Chenxiang Marak (NESFAS associate). The first prize was bagged by Ganol Songma LP School cook, Halitha A Sangma.