Angst about Food Security Pushes Mauritius towards Bread Fruit Cultivation

The ministry aims at using breadfruit to supplement its flour imports and its research laboratory is producing breadfruit trees by the hundreds through tissue culture.??The trees takes four years before reaching maturity and then produce two harvests per year.?A local company, Sarjua, is producing flour with breadfruit since two year and its director says that he will buy all the breadfruit that will be produced on the island for he cannot presently meet the demand for the breadfruit flour being produced. ??This type of flour is favourite with diabetics, as it has low glycemic  index and there are 230 calories in 1 cup of fresh breadfruit. This serving size contains only 0.5 g of fat, which is 1 per cent of the recommended daily value. It has no cholesterol. It is also loaded with vitamin C and minerals.??The Mauritian government plans to mix breadfruit flour with imported white flour to reduce imports. It has also started to grow wheat in an attempt to further cut its flour importation and the island dependence on imported foods.?Imported flour is sold in Mauritius with a government subsidy.??Breadfruit was introduced in Mauritius during colonial days to feed the slave population working in sugar field plantation.

A Rs 200 million temple to be constructed opposite Macdonald?The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) is finalising its project of constructing a temple next to the old temple it has in Phoenix. The temple will cost around Rs 200 million and will be situated some metres away form a Macdonal restaurant which serves meat and fish.??Architects chosen by ISKCON for the temple will arrive in Mauritius shortly to finalise the project.?The construction will be almost entirely funded by Hare Krishna devotees in Mauritius. ?Some of them staged peaceful demonstration in front of the Macdonald restaurant and against the municipal council of Vacoas-Phoenix for having granted a licence to a meat serving restaurant when it was well known that ISKON was to construct a Hindu temple in the vicinity. ??The local authorities then explained that it could not do otherwise for no objection has been entered against the restaurant project during the time which is usually granted for such objections.?After the temple project, ISKON Mauritius intends so set up apartment blocks, vegetarian restaurants and shops on a plot of land it owns opposite the entrance of the Jumbo supermarket of Phoenix.

Motorist lived on Thursday last the hell of tomorrow’s traffic jam. ?Hell broke loose at mid-day on Thursday on the motorway at the north and south entrance of Port-Louis. Motorist queued from the Riche-Terre roundabout to the Labourdonnais square. Those trying to join the motorway from the north found themselves in a jam which started from Arsenal and ran all the way up to the Terre-rouge roundabout.??The situation was not better for those coming from the south and traffic was also hellish in the centre of the capital.?According to a traffic expert working in the ministry of public infrastructure, it all happened because the long week-end (Friday last being public holiday) coincided with the end of month activity. ??“What we saw on Friday is a glimpse of what await us by the end of next year if government persists in its policy of engaging huge sums of money on non-urgent road construction. Even the proposed dream bridge will be of no help if all the roundabouts, from the Terre-Rouge one  up to the one leading to quay D are not provided with highway overpass, or motorway interchange, as the one at Caudan” says the expert who spoke to l’express web under condition of anonymity.?He says that the island is running a time race against the increasing car, lorry, bus and commercial vehicles fleet that are submerging the road capacity and old fashioned roundabouts and junctions.