In late February the FoodAfrica team met up in Nairobi for a few days of intensive and constructive discussions about the Programme. It was the annual meeting both of the Work Packages and of the Supervisory Board, but in addition a strategy workshop was organized for all team members. The goal of the strategy workshop was to start developing a sustainability strategy for the Programme, including thinking about next steps …
In connection to the annual meeting the FoodAfrica Supervisory Board paid a field visit to the Ol Kalou Dairy Cooperative on 26 February 2015. This cooperative was established by a few small-scale dairy farmers in 2003. Since then it has grown to become a major dairy cooperative in the area and has currently about 6000 members. The members of the cooperative deliver up to 40 000 litres of cow milk …
FoodAfrica WP1 is well on schedule. The work package focuses on strengthening capacity for diagnosis and management of soil micronutrient deficiencies in Sub Saharan Africa for improved plant, animal and human nutrition. So far we have developed protocols for analysis of soil micronutrients using new low cost, high throughput, direct methods using infrared and x-ray spectroscopy technology. We completed this year analysis of all 1,900 reference samples from the Africa …
In FoodAfrica Work Package 2 ten rounds of milk recording have been completed in 236 farms on two research sites in Senegal. Due to the extension of the project period until the end of 2015 two more rounds will be completed before the end of March 2015. The amount of data is accumulating fast since six well trained enumerators visit all farms every month. Recording was started with a base-line …
As 2014 draws to a close, we take note of a number of important advances that have taken place in the work of the IFPRI-ISRA-MTT team working on climate change in Senegal. During 2014, we added two PhD students to the team, who are looking at key aspects of climate change impacts in Senegal. El Hadj Yakhya Thior is looking at livestock performance and the role of better feeds in …
During 2014 we have made good progress in assessing effectiveness of extension approaches for disseminating information and innovations in rural communities via volunteer farmer trainers in Kenya and Uganda and rural resource centers and market information systems in Cameroon. Concerning volunteer farmer trainers, we are finding that they are highly cost-effective. Our research focused on what motivates them to perform. We found that altruism and gaining access to new information …
To assess the economic cost and risk to human health associated with aflatoxins in the Kenyan feed-dairy chain, we conducted cross-sectional surveys in four agro-ecological zones in Kenya. The agro-ecological zones selected include semi-arid, humid, sub-humid and temperate zones. The counties representing the areas are Isiolo, Tharaka-Nithi, Kwale, Kisii and Bungoma. The field work was divided into two phases so as to account for seasonal effect of aflatoxins. We carried …
Drying maize to a moisture content level appropriate for safe storage is a challenge for small-scale farmers in Kenya, exacerbating the risk of aflatoxin contamination in home-produced maize. IFPRI has enrolled 665 maize farming households across 30 villages in Meru and Tharaka-Nithi counties in a study to evaluate the demand for, and impact of, post-harvest technologies to reduce aflatoxin contamination. In 2014, we identified and tested a number of promising …
WP6 is a randomized-control trial of the impact of agricultural information in Ghana and Uganda. In each country, a baseline survey was carried out and a sub-sample was randomly selected to receive agricultural market information via SMS messages to farmer phones. In Ghana, farmers have been receiving a variety of information services during 2014. Approximately one-third of the study group has been receiving agricultural prices, extension messages, and weather alerts, …
Katri Leinonen, 29, is a Master of Science student (Agricultural Policy) from the University of Helsinki working at MTT Agrifood Research Finland. She’s doing her thesis in FoodAfrica work package 6 by analyzing what kind of reasons are behind the Ugandan smallholders’ access to markets. What is your research about? – I am researching which factors are the most relevant when it comes to Ugandan smallholders access to markets based …