Sharing Knowledge on Capacity Development for Agricultural Innovation through TAPipedia

10 July 2018. This webinar was co-organised by TAP and GFAR to raise awareness among the francophone community of the role of TAPipedia in disseminating innovative and systemic approaches for capacity development. The webinar was conducted  in French: 

Partager les connaissances sur le renforcement
des capacités pour l’innovation agricole à travers TAPipedia
In this webinar TAPipedia’ s main features were presented, focusing particularly on the interactive section on the TAP Common Framework, which is currently being tested in eight countries of the CDAIS project, and other key resources developed under TAP and the CDAIS project. In addition, experiences from the CDAIS project regarding the use and relevance of TAPipedia were shared.

• Brief introduction to TAPipedia within the context of TAP, by TAP Secretariat – 15 min (powerpoint and shared screen)
• Presentation of the interactive section of TAPipedia, including presentation of the factsheets and tools belonging to the TAP CD for AIS cycle, by Abdoulaye Saley Moussa, TAP Secretariat – 20 min (Shared screen)
• Sharing experience on TAPipedia, by CDAIS Burkina Faso and/or Rwanda (tbd) – 10 min
• Sharing experiences on TAPipedia by FARA – 10 min

Better Vegetables, Better Lives: Improving African Indigenous Vegetables

5 July 2018. Uganda. End of project dissemination workshop for the PAEPARD project “Enhancing nutrition security and incomes through adding value to indigenous vegetables in East and Central Uganda”.

The project communication has created awareness about the African Indigenous Vegetables (AIV). It has published stories that demonstrate othe project impact on their website at http://afri-sol.org/.

It encourages everybody to be part of the voice advocating for improved nutrition and income through investing in African Indigenous Vegetables by following and connecting via social media through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram using @afrisolug and the hashtag #BetterVegetablesBetterLives.

Download the Dissemination Note:
PAEPARD, 2018. Better Vegetables, Better Lives Improving African Indigenous Vegetables for greater nutrition and income African Solanacease Network (Afri-Sol): Mukono, Ganda 32 pages

Working with FarmGain Africa, Chain Uganda, University of Greenwich, FARA, and the European Union; farmers in Central and Eastern Uganda have benefited from engaging in Indigenous vegetables. 

250 farmers, 11 undergraduates, 7 Masters, 1 PhD trained through the #BettervegetablesBetterLives project

The charcoal cooler was designed working jointly with the farmers in Jinja and Wakiso to preserve the vegetables. The Charcoal Cooler is an appropriate technology that extends shelf life of vegetables from one to three days.

Eriya Matovu, a youth vegetable farmer vends vegetables during the open market and collects approximately US$800 in sales revenue. On average, Eriya’s weekly sales amount to about US$3,200.

"We noticed an increase in the farmer market access and a greater awareness on the importance of indigenous vegetables"  Dr. John Jagwe from Farmgain Africa (see picture right)

Merel CEDRIC 

(Head Of Operations @EUinUg)

IMPROVED INDIGENOUS VEGETABLE SEED PROCESSING
During the project life span, farmers participated and developed on-farm seed varieties lines. In the selected farming communities, the trainings on seed processing and value of vegetable nutrients have increased awareness on the nutritional value and consumption of vegetables in the communities. Farmers can now select the vegetable seed variety and determine the vegetable quality of their harvest. This has improved and sustained the pure seed quality and increase their income resulting from bumper harvests. The participating farmers from Jinja, Mbale and Wakiso are known for their pure seed quality making them reference points for pure seed business.

BUILDING APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGIES TO REDUCE POST-HARVEST LOSSES
Two charcoal coolers were constructed in Jinja and Wakiso to reduce on the post-harvest losses. Previously, farmers would harvest and keep their vegetables in their houses and some under the tree shade. This has changed with the building of affordable and sustainable charcoal coolers. 

The vegetable shelve life has increased from 1-3 days allowing the farmers to store any extra vegetables that may have not been sold on that day. Identifying packing materials that address appearance, texture, flavor, nutrition value and safety for the vegetables has enabled better handling and reduced loss of vegetable quality during their transportation to the markets. 

"Working with farmers, we have been able to identify technologies that are appropriate for farmers to reduce post-harvest losses and maximise profits such as the charcoal cooler and packaging materials" Dr. Apolo from CHAIN Uganda (picture left).

Pemela Kabod (Makere University)
and Liz Kizito 
(Uganda Chrisian University)

“Quality is very important for our business to thrive. The improved packaging materials have greatly helped us during transportation of our vegetables to the market.” Mr. Odongo, farmer from Jinja.

MOBILIZING RESOURCES
African Indigenous Vegetables research team through this project honed proposal writing, resource mobilization, management and governance skills. The team submitted eight proposals for different calls and won three for funding. One of the proposals approved focuses on the functional vegetable seed system, a result from the prioritization exercise while working with the framers and other stakeholders. Other proposals included: 

Remi Kahane (CIRAD) and
Jonas Mugabe (FARA)


• UCU lead project with funding from Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS): Phenotyping water use efficiency in Solanum aethiopicum, shum group. 
• UCU and CHAIN partnership with funding from (ARF/ WOTRO): Developing a gender responsive commercial seed system for African Indigenous vegetables in Uganda 
• Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF - SASSA - Sustainable Agriculture for Sub-Saharan Africa): Improving production efficiency of African egg plant, (Solanum aethiopicum) for small holder farmers in Sub-Sharan Africa 
• Chain Uganda also received funding from the Dutch, a result of the efforts from the Indigenous Vegetable project. 

Agriculture as an engine of economic reconstruction and development in fragile countries

27 June 2018. The latest Brussels Development Briefing no. 51 on ”Agriculture as an engine of economic reconstruction and development in fragile countries ” was organised by the ACP-EU Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), in collaboration with the European Commission / DEVCO, the ACP Secretariat, and CONCORD.

• Background Note
• Programme 
• Reader
• Biodata of the speakers

Panel 1: Fragility and its implications for agriculture

This panel shared concepts and approaches to fragility, lessons learned from selected countries and the implications for the agricultural sector and the rural communities.

• What have we learned about fragile states: challenges and opportunities - James Putzel, Dept International Development, London School of Economics, UK [presentation]
• Agriculture as a way to bridge the humanitarian–development–peace divide in fragile contexts - Rajendra K. Aryal, Senior Programme Advisor, Resilience Building, FAO [presentation]
• Investments in Agricultural private sector in conflict-affected or post-conflict countries - Alexandros Ragoussis, Economist, Thought Leadership, Economics and Private Sector Development, IFC, World Bank Group

Panel 2: Successful practices in agriculture in fragile countriesThis panel shared successes from the field from selected fragile countries highlighting sustainable practices in production and market development and positive impact at local level.

• Connecting farmers to markets in fragile countries : Successes and lessons learned - Bing Zhao, P4P Director and Global Coordinator, World Food Programme
• Farmers’ Organisations: a social and economic force in a context of chronic instability - Annick Sezibera, Executive Secretary, CAPAD, Burundi [presentation]
  
  
  
  
• Disaster Risk Reduction and resilience building: the case of South Sudan - Harma Rademaker, Programme Manager, Cordaid, The Netherlands [presentation
• Building resilience to mitigate the effects of future shocks in the agricultural sector in Somalia - Katharine Downie, Head, Data Quality Assurance, M and E and Innovation, Worldvision, Somalia [presentation]

UPCOMING EVENTS IN AGRICULTURE RESEARCH FOR DEVELOPMENT (AR4D) - JULY - DECEMBER 2018

3 - 5 July 2018. Stuttgart, Germany. 5th International ISEKI Food Conference

16 - 19 July 2018. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. BIO World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology

20 July 2018. Call for Nominations of Outstanding Practices in Agroecology 2018

8-11 August, 2018. Kumasi/ Ghana. 2nd GAAE Conference, ICIL-KNUST. Ghana Association of Agricultural Economists (GAAEs). The theme of the conference is ‘’Ghana’s Agriculture, Food Security and Job Creation

15-17 August 2018. Arc Api Irene Centurion, South Africa. Smart Farming Tech Symposium ‘Innovation and Tech use for betterAgriculture’

15-17 August 2018. Copenhagen. Small devices and Big data for Food

20-21 August 2018. Kigali, Rwanda. Youth in Agriculture as a Solid Solution to ending Hunger and Poverty in Africa

20-24 August 2018. Nairobi, Kenya. 14th Edition of the African Dairy Conference

21 August 2018. Pretoria. Agbiz Grain Symposium

27-29 August 2018. Durban (ICC), South Africa. BIO Africa Convention 2018

30 - 31 August 2018. Auditorium Fiers-Shell-Van Montagu VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology Gent-Zwijnaarde, Belgium. IPBO conference 2018: “Scientific innovation for a sustainable development of African agriculture”.

5 – 6 September 2018. University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany. Congress FOOD2030 Towards Sustainable Food Systems

17-19 September 2018. Gent, Belgium. Tropen Tag Ghent 2018. Annual interdisciplinary conference on Research in tropical and subtropical agriculture, Natural Resource Management and Rural Development. Conference theme: Global food security and food safety: The role of universities

20 September 2018. AFAAS Webinar Series Scaling up proven technologies and practices of postharvest management in Africa” @ 12:00-14:00 GMT

17 - 21 September 2018. Sustainable Agriculture - the competence-based management of smallholder farming systems

19-21 September 2018. Uppsala, Sweden. Engaging Africa Diaspora in Knowledge Transfer through Networking.

24-26 September 2018. Cape Town, South Africa. Africa Fertilizer Agribusiness Conference.

24-26 September 2018. Khartoum Sudan. 1 Inter-Regional Smart Agriculture Forum (ISAF)

25-26 September 2018. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. CGIAR Gender Annual Scientific Conference

25 – 27 Sep 2018. Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA. Innovations in Agriculture: Scaling Up to Reach Millions. A conference focusing on effective approaches to scaling up agricultural technologies and innovations in the developing world

September/October 2018. Final Date and Venue Yet to be announced: Fall Army Worm Tech Price Award Event. Organized by the US Government Feed the Future and the Challenge Prize Centre

1-2 October 2018. Maritim Hotel, Cologne (Germany): Revolution in Food and Biomass Production; High-tech strategy for a sustainable biomass supply

1-5 October 2018. Addis, Ethiopia. The 8th Africa Nutritional Epidemiology Conference

3-4 October 2018. University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana. WACCI International Conference on Food and Nutrition Security in Africa.

4-7 October 2018. Jahorina, Bosnia and Herzegovina. AGROSYM 2018.

7-11 October 2018. Berlin, Germany. IWCSPP 2018 - 12th International Working Conference for Stored Product Protection.

9-10 October 2018. Bari, Italy. Leap-Agri start up meeting

9-12 October 2018. Johannesburg, South Africa. Second African Congress on Conservation Agriculture

10-12 October 2018. Stellenbosch, South Africa. Science Forum 2018 (SF18)

16 October 2018. Brussels. On the occasion of World Food Day 2018,FAO and the European Commission will organize an event hosted by the MEP Mr. Paolo De Castro at the European Parliament. The registration link will be provided early September. This event will consist of a two-hour debate preceded by a networking lunch. It will provide feedback and build on the findings of the recent 2nd FOOD 2030 High Level Event that took place in Plovdiv under the auspices of the Bulgarian Presidency from 14-15 June 2018.

15-19 October 2018. Accra, Ghana. 7th All African Conference on Animal Agriculture (7th AACAA)

22-26 October 2018. Nairobi, Kenya. The Sixth African Higher Education Week and RUFORUM Biennial Conference.

24-25 October 2018. Accra, Ghana. 2018 GLOBELICS International Conference

5-8 November 2018. Yaounde, Cameroon. 4th African Organic Conference (AOC).

7 - 9 November 2018. Esterhazy Palace, Eisenstadt, Austria. 6th International Conference on Organic Agriculture Sciences (ICOAS)

19-23 November, 2018. Abuja, Nigeria. IFDC workshop: Bringing Balanced Fertilizers to Smallholder Farmers in Africa

21-23 November 2018. Rome. International Symposium on Agricultural Innovation for Family Farmers: Unlocking the potential of agricultural innovation to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals

22-23 November 2018. Salvador, Bahia/Brazil. 6th Brazil Africa Forum. Youth Empowerment: Transformation to Achieve Sustainable Transformation

30 November-4 December 2018: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. APIMONDIA SYMPOSIUM 2018; Role of Bees in Food Production

10-12 December 2018. Center of Congress Rennes, France. DIVERSIFOOD Final Congress ‘Cultivating Diversity and Food Quality’ 

18 - 20 June , 2019. Nairobi. 1st All Africa Congress on Synthetic Pesticides, Environment, Human and Animal Health

June 2018 PAEPARD blog posts

To the 9,760 members of the PAEPARD Dgroups (+ 75 during this month)

Aux 9,760 membres du PAEPARD Dgroups

Please find hereunder the blog posts related to ARD activities in June 2018. To view the whole blog instead of separate postings click on http://paepard.blogspot.com/ 

Veuillez trouver ci-dessous les ressources du blog se relatant à la RAD pour le mois de juin 2018. Pour consulter le blog dans son entièreté au lieu de nouvelles distinctes cliquez sur http://paepard.blogspot.com/. Pour la traduction en français cliquez dans la colonne de droite du blog sur « automatic translation » et choisissez votre langue !

Por favor, encontre aqui os posts do blog relacionados à ARD atividades. Para visualizar todo o blog, em vez de postagens em separado clique em http://paepard.blogspot.com/. Para a versão em Português, clique na coluna da direita do blog "tradução automática" e escolha o seu idioma!

1.       Webinar Agriculture, Food and Jobs in West Africa

28 June 2018. Webinar

2.       The Agriculture, Nutrition and Health (ANH) Academy + video

25 – 29 June 2018. Accra, Ghana. The ANH Academy Week programme featured Learning Labs (training workshops) offered by ANH Academy partners, a scientific Research Conference with invited papers, poster and panel sessions, and many opportunities for networking with other researchers and research-users.

3.       2nd African Symposium on Mycotoxicology PAEPARD participation

24 - 27 June 2018. Mombasa (Kenya). The conference created awareness on the importance of mycotoxins in food and feed safety, human and animal health and the economic impact on the African continent.

4.       Canadian research projects in Africa

Since 2009, CIFSRF has funded 39 applied, collaborative, and results-oriented research projects.

5.       Access agriculture platform now in Spanish

The Access Agriculture (AA) website hosts training videos in support of sustainable agriculture in developing countries

6.       Nutrition Champions Win 2018 World Food Prize

25 June 2018. Drs. Lawrence Haddad and David Nabarro were announced as the 2018 World Food Prize Laureates during a ceremony at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

7.       Francophone Africa Business Forum (FAB Forum)

19 June 2018. The Hague. The FAB Forum was an opportunity to meet close to 200 business men and women (as well as public sector representatives) from Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and other Francophone countries, all in a single day

8.       Conflict-sensitive adaptation to climate change in Africa new resource **+ video

This edited volume focuses on conflict-sensitivity in climate change adaptation strategies and practices in Africa and brings together the voices of academics, practitioners and policymakers from across the globe and Africa.
18-24 June 2018. Climate Diplomacy Week is a time, where EU Delegations around the world reach out to communities and partner organisations, highlighting positive global action and collaboration on climate change

9.       Climate Adaptation Futures 2018 + video

18-21 June 2018. Cape Town, South Africa. The conference aimed to facilitate dialogues for solutions between key actors from diverse perspectives and regions and attracted over 1300 scientists, practitioners, business leaders and policymakers from around the world.

10.   Experience Capitalization for Continuous Learning

This course introduces the methodology and process of experience capitalization. It gives you guidance and tools to help you plan and implement your own experience capitalization process, and ensure its efficiency and effectiveness.

11.   ARD funding opportunities PAEPARD activity

12.   Workshop ERA-NET on climate change and food systems

18-19 June 2018. Brussels. A workshop with the Belmont Forum to continue the scoping work for the future ERA-NET on Climate Change and Food Systems.

13.   Financing Start-ups to Build Tomorrow's African Economies new resource **

May 2018. 52 pages

14.   Research; Innovation for Food and Nutrition Security + video

14-15 June 2018. Plovdiv, Bulgaria. This was the second FOOD2030 High Level event.

15.   Webinar: Delivering African Climate Information Services

14 June 2018. This webinar displayed learning from an assessment of the effectiveness and sustainability of seven African National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) to deliver CIS (Senegal, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Malawi, Mali, Cote d’Ivoire and Niger)

16.   General Assembly of the Donor Platform for Rural Development  new resource ***+ video

13-14 June 2018. Berlin. Young and ready to move – empowering the new generation in the rural space. Annual General Assembly of the Donor Platform for Rural Development.

17.   Donor engagement with rural youth new resource ***

Prepared for the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development Maria Lee, May 2018, 72 pages

18.   Maximizing Finance for Development in Agricultural value chains

This report provides details on maximizing finance for development in agricultural value chains

19.   The Economics and Nutrition of Soy in School Lunch new resource ***+ video

12 June 2018. The Soybean Innovation Lab (SIL) hosted this webinar

20.   CBA12: Local experience driving climate action new resource ***+ video

11-14 June 2018. Lilongwe. 12th International Conference on Community Based Adaptation.

21.   Empowering women to start their own enterprises

Watch this new video telling the story of Jennifer Nzioka Mutunga, a chicken farmer from Kenya, who turned chicken rearing from a household task into an enterprise with support from SNV's Enhancing Opportunities for Women's Enterprises (EOWE) programme.

22.   EAT Stockholm Food Forum 2018 new resource ***+ video

11-12 June 2018. Stockholm, Sweden. Over 600 participants from science, politics, business and civil society from over 50 countries gathered at the fifth EAT Stockholm Food Forum.

23.   High level conference on job creation, growth and competitiveness in West + video

7 June 2018. Brussels. Side event European Development Days.

24.   Africa Innovation Summit 2018 + video

6-8 June 2018. Kigali. The focus of AIS 2018 included energy access, water, health, food security and climate change. The European Commission organized a Workshop session on Creating opportunities for innovation cooperation between Africa and Europe; and a full day awareness activity " Horizon 2020 Info Day" to share with Participants the Funding opportunities for cooperation between Africa and Europe through Horizon 2020.

25.   International Forum on Food and Nutrition + video

6 June 2018. Brussels. The International Forum on Food and Nutrition, organized by the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrion (BCFN) in partnership with the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) and the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (UN SDSN) shared ideas and experiences in ways that inspire new partnerships and innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges.

26.   Multi-stakeholder Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation

5-6 June 2018. New York, USA

27.   Africa Food Safety Workshop 2018

4-8 June 2018. Pretoria. The workshops contributed to better food safety control systems in Africa while establishing and strengthening networks among food safety stakeholders.

28.   Agriculture related sessions at the European Development Days + video         

5-6 June 2018. Brussels.

29.   African Farming’s Agro-Investment Summit

4-5 June 2018. London, United Kingdom.

30.   E-learning course on Reviewing Assessment Reports of the IPCC + video

5 June 2018. Future Climate for Africa organised a micro e-learning course on Expert and Government Review of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Reports.

31.   e-Agriculture Webinar on Audio-Based Agriculture Extension + video

5 June 2018. Cliff Schmidt founded Amplio in 2007 and led the development of the Talking Book.

32.   AFAAS Webinar: Bringing Postharvest management solutions + video

5 June 2018. The AFAAS webinar series on Postharvest Management (PHM)

33.   Report on the survey among fishers in Benin

30 May 2017. ACED has been awarded a research grant from the Food and Business Applied Research Fund of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) to implement this project. A report has been published (68 pages) on the survey among fishers around Lake Nokoué and Porto-Novo Lagoon in Benin

34.   How companies address undernutrition in low-income countries new resource ***+ video

May 2018, 216 pages. It is not always necessary to fortify food products with added micronutrients. Micronutrient deficiencies may be addressed as well through ingredients that are naturally high in the micronutrient(s)

35.   The Africa Financial Alliance for Climate Change + video

21-25 May 2018. Busan, Korea. Busan, Korea’s second city, hosted the annual meeting of the AfDB’s board of governors, with the focus on the industrialisation in Africa.

36.   Foresight4food

22-24 May 2018. Montpellier, A second Foresight4Food workshop was held as a follow-up to the Oxford in April 2017.

Total number of page views in the month of June 2018: 35,903

Most viewed pages on PAEPARD blog over the past month:

Entry	Page views
ARD funding opportunities	3,141
Agriculture related sessions at the European Development Days	476
High level conference on job creation, growth and competitiveness in West	204

More:  forthcoming ARD conferences: http://paepard.blogspot.com/2018/05/upcoming-events-in-agriculture-research.html

Webinar Agriculture, Food and Jobs in West Africa

28 June 2018. Webinar "Food Employment in West Africa". Based on the SWAC West African Paper, ‘Agriculture, Food and Jobs in West Africa’ published last April. 

The webinar featured presentations by:

• Philipp Heinrigs, Senior Economist, SWAC and co-author of the paper. 
• Ousman Djibo (Project Manager, Agricultural Policy and Food Security, GIZ) 
• Thomas Reardon (Professor, Michigan State University), 
• Saweda Liverpool-Tasie (Assistant Professor, Michigan State University) 
• and Ileana Grandelis (Rural Employment Officer, FAO).

Key discussion points included:

• Shifts in labour demand within West Africa’s food systems and drivers for off-farm employment,
• Emerging spatial implications, in particular rural-urban linkages and rural employment diversification,
• Policy considerations for designing targeted employment strategies that leverage the links between agricultural productivity, off-farm employment and rural-urban areas, particularly for youth and women.

Related: 

High level conference on job creation, growth and competitiveness in West Africa 

7 June 2018. Brussels. Side event European Development Days. The EC together with ECOWAS and WAEMU organised the High level conference on job creation, growth and competitiveness in West Africa. 

Report:

Agriculture, Food and Jobs in West Africa
OECD, April 2018. 32 pages
The food economy is the biggest employer in West Africa accounting for 66% of total employment. While the majority of food economy jobs are in agriculture, off-farm employment in food-related manufacturing and service activities is increasing as the food economy adapts to rapid population growth, urbanisation and rising incomes.

This paper quantifies and describes the structure of employment in the food economy across four broad segments of activities:

• agriculture, 
• processing, 
• marketing and 
• food-away-from home. 

It examines some of the emerging spatial implications, including rural-urban linkages and rural employment diversification, which are related to the transformations that are reshaping this sector. It then puts forward policy considerations for designing targeted employment strategies that leverage the links between agricultural productivity, off-farm employment and rural-urban areas and that ensure inclusiveness, particularly for youth and women.

Read Download
Also available in: French

Extracts:
The food economy is the biggest employer in West Africa. The various activities involved in producing food, from the farm to processing, packaging, transporting, storing, distributing and retailing, account for 66% of total employment, or 82 million jobs. While the majority of these jobs (78%) are in agriculture, off-farm employment in food-related manufacturing and service activities is growing in number and share. (page 5)

Food-away-from-home activities which include street food, restaurants and other catering services, generate 10% of overall off-farm food economy employment, with much higher shares in some urban areas. This shift in labour demand will increase as the food system, including agriculture, continues to specialise and diversify, providing employment opportunities in local food economies. (page 5)

Employment patterns in the food economy are primarily driven by local food demand. At the regional level, the vast majority of food consumption comes from local food production, with food imports representing only 8% of total food expenditure. Food imports and exports also generate employment in the food system. Imports of unprocessed or lightly processed foods such as cereals generate employment in processing and marketing segments, while food exports generate agricultural employment and, to a lesser extent, food processing and food marketing (transport, storage and logistics) employment. (page 8)

The three off-farm food economy segments – food marketing, food processing and food away from home – account for 22% of total food economy employment at the regional level. Although the distribution of employment in the off-farm segments varies by country, there is a clear pattern which shows that food marketing is the largest off-farm segment. (page 10)

The food processing sector is the largest manufacturing sub-sector in terms of employment in the region. Although it accounts for just 5% of food economy employment, it represents 30% of total secondary sector employment. (page 11)

Overall, food economy jobs represent 35% of total urban employment. Food marketing and food-away-from-home account for 57% of all urban food economy jobs. These jobs are closely linked to the size of food markets and vary strongly across countries. (page 15)

Youth can play an important role in the development of food economy activities, including agriculture. The transformations in the food economy mean that greater skills and education are necessary to access employment opportunities and develop activities. (page 17)

An important aspect to acknowledge is that the links between food economy activities (food value chains), which provide the connection between production and final consumption, also reflect the links between rural and urban areas. These spatial linkages across the rural-urban space, between rural areas and small towns and secondary cities, are important elements in food economy development and rural transformation and need to be better understood in order to develop employment opportunities. (page 20)

The employment opportunities in food value chains, including in farming, require skill sets that are rapidly evolving. These include knowing how to use improved technologies (seeds, fertilisers, conservation practices) and information and communications technologies (ICTs) for accessing market information, as well as how to navigate public and private service institutions such as finance, extension support and marketing services. Anticipating and supporting these educational requirements are of major importance to the jobs agenda. (page 22)

The absence of data hinders the study of labour market dynamics in the region and limits the capacity of governments and policy makers to anticipate future transformations and to inform employment policies at local and national levels.  (page 24)

Also in the West African Papers series:

• The Cost of High Food Prices in West Africa
• West African Food Systems and Changing Consumer Demands
• Women's Roles in the West African Food System
• Emerging Opportunities in the West African Food Economy

2nd African Symposium on Mycotoxicology

Mr. L kubok, Managing Director
(Agriculture and Food Authority),
informing the audience about mycotoxin contamination
in the food and feed chain in Kenya. 

24 - 27 June 2018. Mombasa (Kenya). The 2nd African Symposium on Mycotoxicology entitled “Mitigating mycotoxin contamination in the African food and feed chain”, hosted by Dr. Bradley Flett and Dr. Sheila Okoth, was held under the auspices of the International Society on Mycotoxicology (ISM, Dr. Rudi Krska and Dr. Antonio Moretti (president andvice-president ISM)).

The 1st African Symposium on Mycotoxicology held in 2015 in Zambia caused the willing to organize this 2nd symposium with the effort to address the threat of mycotoxins to food production systems, health care and trade on the African continent.

The conference created awareness on the importance of mycotoxins in food and feed safety, human and animal health and the economic impact on the African continent.

Dr. Lindy Rose
Fusarium Lab at the Department
of Plant Pathology in
Stellenbosch University.
Cape Town, South Africa

• Africa experiences continuous widespread pre- and postharvest losses of cereals, groundnuts, tree nuts and other food crops through mycotoxin contamination. 
• Of greater concern are the severe impacts on human lives including stunting in children and deaths of humans and animals associated with the consumption of mycotoxin contaminant food and feed. 
• The ubiquitous contamination of African commodities with mycotoxins impedes economic development on the continent as maximum allowable limits in food and feed, set by USA and EU, may not be achievable or regulated to ensure quality.

The symposium brought together experts in mycotoxicology, agriculture, nutrition, policy makers, farmers, agro-entrepreneurs, cereal boards and processors to share their viewpoints on mycotoxin related issues and research. Topics will range from health and socioeconomic impacts, while multidisciplinary approaches will be adopted to address issues on mycotoxin occurrence in Africa including the uptake and evaluation of technology within an African context.

The symposium provided a unique opportunity for sharing information amongst African and international participants and created an environment for role-players to meet and interact to form successful partnerships and collaborations.

Extracts of the Scientific programme

Keynotes

• A. Moretti, N. Cito, and A.F. Logrieco, Communication and dissemination: two key aspects for a more efficient mycotoxin management at worldwide level: the MycoKey approach.
• F. Stepman, Scaling-up the impact of aflatoxin research in Africa. The role of social sciences.
  The academic world and the development world still seem to operate in different spheres and a collaboration is still challenging due to the complexity of the contamination sources at pre-harvest and post-harvest levels. There is a growing call by research funders and development actors for the impact of solutions at a scale. The solutions to mitigate aflatoxin contamination require new ways of working together. A more prominent role is to be played by social scientists. The role of social scientists in scaling-up the impact of aflatoxin research in Africa and the proposed mitigation solutions is to ensure that awareness, advantage, affordability, and access are systematically assessed. 
  
  
• S. Muchiri (see picture right), Mitigating mycotoxin contamination in Africa food and feed chains – farmers perspective.
• A.F. Logrieco and A. Moretti, The MYCOTOX CHARTER: awareness for harmonizing efforts and regulations worldwide.
• H. Hassan-Wassef (see picture right), Mycotoxins: Are profit oriented control measures leaving out domestic health concerns?
• D. Ameyawds, Monitoring and Evaluation of Technology uptake in Africa
  
  
• A. Ayalew (see picture right), The challenges of mycotoxin contamination in African crops: missing links to sustainably mitigate the challenges.
  This year has already seen a marked progress in food safety and aflatoxin control in Africa. Food safety is receiving the focus it deserves by the African Union (AU). The highest AU policy organ, the AU Assembly of Heads of State and Government, received a report on food safety and aflatoxin control as part of the Annual Report on the Activities of the AU and its Organs. 
• L. A. Senghor, A. Ortega-Beltran, M. Konlambigue, J. Atehnkeng, P.J. Cotty and R. Bandyopadhyay, The biocontrol product Aflasafe SN01: a registered tool for aflatoxin mitigation in maize and groundnut in Senegal and Gambia.

MYTOX-SOUTH: 

• An intercontinental partnership on mycotoxin mitigation: who, what and how? by Dr. Marthe De Boevre
• Testimonials on success stories by Dr. Melody Ndemera, Richard Madege and Dr. Limbikani Matumba (picture left)

MYTOX-SOUTH is a partnership to improve food security & food safety through mitigation of mycotoxins at global level with the following long term goals:

• BUILDING HUMAN CAPACITY. MYTOX-SOUTH started by training, student/staff exchange programs and Joint PhDs which can contribute to an increased capacity of partners in the South and the identification of new research areas to reduce mycotoxin risks, to transfer knowledge on several detection techniques, to ameliorate pre- and post-harvest practices by using mycotoxin binders, biological control agents and other intervention techniques, to assess the risks when consumers are exposed to mycotoxins
  
• BRIDGING THE GAP. For two decades focus has been set towards the problem of aflatoxins, however there has not been paid enough attention to the coordination of local (African) research capacity. Development actors are getting mobilized to tackle the problem, but bridging research and development in this field is challenging. Mycotoxin contamination of food and feed requires a development and research policy which translates research outcomes into practical ways which can bridge the gap between (1) research and the development of more safe food and feed, and (2) different actors including farmer organizations, NGO’s such as Mycotoxicology Associations, the private sector and policy makers.
• CREATING A SUSTAINABLE NETWORK, MYTOX-SOUTH contributes to the coordination of research actors in order to focus skills and resources, and to improve the communication between research and non-research actors. As a solid consortium, MYTOX-SOUTH seeks for international funding opportunities to further enhance its capacity to deal with mycotoxins and the related food safety and food security challenges. By involving the Northern partners as CAS China, BioIntellipro LLC, the World Food Preservation Centre® LLC, USDA and PAEPARD a world-wide visibility will be achieved.

G. Antonissen UGent

Related:

The research proposal MycoSafe-South, the “European–African partnership for safe and efficient use of mycotoxin-mitigation strategies in sub-Saharan Africa” has been approved by the selection committee of LEAP-Agri.

It is co-funded by the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO), Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (NFSR), Research Council of Norway (RCN), Kenyan Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST), South Africa's National Research Foundation (NRF), BIOMIN Holding GmbH, Harbro Ltd.

Start: 1 September 2018, duration 3 years, budget: 795,492 Euro.

Related:
MYTOX-SOUTH traineeship call:

The traineeship period includes a minimum of 1 month to a maximum of 6 months at a Northern partner Institute. The traineeship has to be done in 2019 (starting mid February 2019). Two traineeship grants can be offered in case multiple high-level applications are received, however the period will be shortened (≤ 3 months). On the other hand, if only 1 traineeship grant will selected, the fund will be awarded for a longer training period (> 3 months). When the traineeship is for a 6 months-stay in Ghent, Ghent University offers the opportunity to get a Joint PhD with the home-University. Deadline August 30th 2018!

Upcoming events

• 2-4 October 2018. Dakar, Senegal. Second Partnership Platform Meeting of PACA, 
• October 8-10, 2018 Karlsruhe, Germany. Max Rubner Conference 2018: Fungi and Mycotoxins in Foods
• 7-11 October 2018. Berlin, Germany. IWCSPP 2018 - 12th International Working Conference for Stored Product Protection.
• 15-17 October 2018. Pretoria, South Africa. Second International Conference for Food Safety and Security,