Tropentag, September 19 - 21, 2016 in Vienna, Austria "Solidarity in a competing world - fair use of resources"

Progress and Experiences of the NutriHAF-Africa Project

University of Bonn, Center for Development Research (ZEF), NutriHAF Project, Germany

Abstract

In the framework of the “Research Cooperation for Global Food Security and Nutrition" funded by the BMEL, the NutriHAF-Africa project explores and integrates appropriate fruit and vegetable crops into multi-storey cropping systems to increase (micro-) nutrition security in order to diversify and intensify agriculture and thus to reduce pressure on natural habitats in biodiversity hotspots in Ethiopia and Madagascar. NutriHAF is a research and capacity building project. The research will enable poor male and female smallholders to increase sustainably their agricultural productivity and species diversity by integrating fruits and vegetables into existing multi-storey cropping systems. This is achieved by increasing knowledge about appropriate fruits and vegetables for multi-storey cropping systems and by improving knowledge on food behaviour and adoption constraints. Capacity building will increase the awareness and knowledge of farmers, consumers and decision takers about balanced diets, nutritional values of different foods, fruit and vegetable production and processing, food preparation and quality.
The project consortium consists of thirteen partners from Germany and Africa that are partly research organisations, partly international, regional and national research and development networks and partly capacity building and implementing organisations.
Progress and results
After one year of research first results and the progress of the project will be presented. The presentation will share experiences from a successful participatory crop selection process and other activities. It will reflect on opportunities and challenges in project implementation that are relevant for the practice in the region and other African countries. The three main opportunities for the project are: the promising marketing potential for (indigenous and other) fruit and vegetables in the area, a long lean period of local vegetables and a high interest in and little knowledge on post-harvest techniques. Challenges included the dominance of administrative structures during the implementation stage and highly overloaded female farmers (the vegetable cultivators) who have little time for trainings and vegetable cultivation in the distanced forests. Finally, attention will be drawn to the importance of training extension services and doing policy advocacy in order to support the project outcome.

Keywords: Biodiversity, diversification, multi-storey cropping systems, nutrition-sensitive agriculture, research cooperation, sub-Saharan Africa

Contact Address: Jochen Dürr, University of Bonn, Center for Development Research (ZEF), NutriHAF Project, W.-Flex-Str. 3, Bonn, Germany, e-mail: jduerruni-bonn.de