Survey of Nyasaland Food Resources

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A COMPREHENSIVE nutritional survey, under the leadership of Dr. B. S. Platt, the first of its kind to be undertaken in the British Colonial Empire, is now being carried out in Nyasaland with the object of studying the actual and potential food resources of three contrasting areas. This survey is the outcome of a recommendation made by the Committee of the Economic Advisory Council on Nutrition in the Colonial Empire. Dr. B. S. Platt has been appointed to the staff of the Medical Research Council for five years to organize and co-ordinate, with the assistance of a small central staff, nutritional surveys throughout the Colonial Empire. The Nyasaland party, which is being financed jointly by the Medical Research Council and the Colonial Development Fund, actually arrived in Nyasaland some months ago. An anthropologist under the auspices of the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures is working with the party. The party is now being joined by Dr. C. K. Bicardo and by Dr. E. Trewavas of the British Museum (Natural History), who will undertake a survey of the fishery resources of Lake Nyasa; and also by Dr. G. A. C. Herklots, reader in biology to the University of Hong-Kong, who has been seconded for eight months to assist with the economic work. It is hoped that the surveys will produce valuable results, on one hand by increasing existing knowledge of the relation between nutrition and ill-health, and on the other hand by suggesting means whereby improvements in nutrition may be effected. It is also interesting to note that the present investigation in Nyasaland is the sort of scheme which Lord Hailey had in mind when advocating, in his recently published African Survey, that scientific research should form an essential basis of policy in Africa.