Wild foods help to reach food and nutrition security
146 different edible plant and 148 edible animal species were documented in the project area in Benin, showing the richness of local biodiversity for food and nutrition. However, 80% of surveyed households experienced some form of food insecurity over the past month, and 59% of households lacked foods several times across the year. Coping strategies used during food insecure periods include reducing diversity and quantity of food, taking loans to buy food …
FoodAfrica trained students to innovate from research to business
Capacity building plays a key role in FoodAfrica II. In October 2016, the programme organized training sessions at two large-scale conferences in Africa, both with a high number of students and youth among the participants. The training sessions organised at the AAIN and RUFORUM conferences was meant to provide new tools and ideas about using research results to create innovative business ideas. Eija Laitinen from FoodAfrica partner HAMK gave an introductory …
FoodAfrica’s soil research innovation presented at FAO’s conference in October
In the FAO Committee on World Food Security in Rome 17-21 October 2016, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Finland jointly organized a side event with Finnish research centres and NGOs. In this event, cases were presented on how local ownership and acceptance for new technologies can be achieved. As one of the four cases Luke presented the results of FoodAfrica work package 1, …
Aiming for better crop production in Senegal together with Felm
FoodAfrica is searching new collaboration possibilities especially with NGO’s both in Finland and Africa. The FoodAfrica research programme team and the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission (Felm) have been discussing about how to collaborate in utilizing the results of the programme in development cooperation. One good option is a food security project PROSAF that Felm is implementing in Senegal through its local partner, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Senegal (ELS) in …