Report: Mohammed A.Abu
The second edition of Bidira Chugu (culinary art festival) and exhibition is due shortly to take off in Ghana’s Northern Regional capital of Tamale.
This year’s edition is scheduled to take place from October 17th and 18th,2025 under the theme, “Reclaiming Our Food, Restoring Our Identity,” focusing on indigenous foods and their role in a sustainable future.
Symposium and Exhibition
For the symposium component of the event, one hundred and fifty (150) participants, 6 speakers, and 20 exhibitors are expected.
Partners
The key partners to the event include, Dagbon Media Foundation, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research’s Savannah Research Institute(CSIR-SARI), RAINS, URBANET, and Amaati Company Ltd. It is also being supported by Ghana Fusions, a USA based restaurant
Side Attractions
Other side attractions of the event include, mural food act, traditional dance performance among others, expected to attract between 700 to 1000 participants for the durbar.
These were disclosed by the event organizers, Duduhugu, in a chat with your favourite, the Eco-Enviro News, Africa magazine on Tuesday.
Aims and Objectives
To revive and preserve the traditional food practices of Northern Ghana, promote the use of local and wild crops, herbs, and vegetables, and build a sustainable food future.
Bindira Chugu” (or “Kali Bindira Chuɣu”) is a traditional food festival that celebrates the Northern Region’s culinary heritage and focusing on indigenous foods, climate-smart farming, and food sovereignty.
Activities: The festival features a symposium to discuss issues like food sovereignty,showcasing indigenous crops,reviving and preserving near extinct traditional crops through exhibitions and education and a “Grand Durbar” with food and cultural activities.Then also,providing a platform to sell locally grown produce and hand made products.
Northern Ghanaian cuisine relies on local crops like maize, millet, sorghum, and various legumes and vegetables, which are used to prepare traditional dishes enriched with local spices like “kpalgu” popularly known in Hausa as “dawadawa”
The nutrients packed food condiment rich in protein, essential minerals and vitamins has since gained rising patronage by many southern Ghanaians with particular reference to the Greater Accra region.
The need to rethink and reimage the age-old Northern Ghanaian dietary architecture and by extension, retool its food crop production environment via Climate Smart Agriculture(CSA) and eco-friendly farming for sustainability, has become more imperative than ever before.
Pursuing pragmatic and measured actions towards addressing not only food security concerns, but nutrition and health security as well, ought to be a shared responsibility. Thus,the Kali Bindira Chugu or Traditional Food Festival initiative deserves the support of all and most especially private corporates in the primary agriculture and agro processing sub sector in the Northern Savannah Ecological Zone(NSEZ)