Description du projet
Exploiter l’énorme potentiel des cultures africaines
Le changement climatique aura un impact significatif sur l’avenir de l’agriculture et du système alimentaire mondial. Une solution consiste à promouvoir une agriculture intelligente face au climat. Le projet InnoFoodAfrica, financé par l’UE, étudiera les cultures africaines intelligentes face au climat (céréales, légumineuses, racines, fruits) en Éthiopie, au Kenya, en Afrique du Sud et en Ouganda, en les présentant comme des ingrédients sains dans la lutte contre la malnutrition. Il se concentrera sur les groupes vulnérables, tels que les enfants souffrant de malnutrition, les femmes enceintes et les adultes exposés à un risque d’obésité. Pour réduire les pertes de nourriture et créer de nouvelles chaînes de valeur, le projet augmentera la diversité des produits alimentaires abordables, denses en nutriments et sains basés sur les cultures locales, et éduquera les gens à de meilleures habitudes alimentaires. Le projet permettra également de convertir les flux secondaires des récoltes en biomatériaux, offrant ainsi au secteur des emballages plastiques une alternative durable.
Objectif
InnoFoodAfrica will explore climate-smart African crops (cereal-pulse-rootInnoFoodAfrica will explore climate-smart African crops (cereal-pulse-root crop-fruit) in Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa and Uganda.
The project will develop and demonstrate optimal solutions for cultivation practices, processing and productization towards new value chains, thus enhancing nutritionally balanced food consumption in urban Africa and creating opportunities to reach international markets. The main output is to demonstrate the huge potential of the African crops as healthy ingredients in combating both malnutrition. The emphasis is to target vulnerable groups, such as malnourished children, pregnant women and adults under the risk of obesity, by increasing the diversity of affordable, nutrient-dense and healthy food products based on local crops, and educating people for improved eating habits.
The project will address key bottlenecks of African food value chains - low productivity, limited access to urban markets, affordability and convenience of end products - by tailoring actions on local context to develop novel technologies in agriculture, food manufacturing and use of residual biomass for packaging, and concurrently to investigate food safety, food security and food loss reduction. Trainings, targeted especially women, will be organized in all four African countries. The trainings include e.g. farming productivity of indigenous crops, effective post-harvest technologies, valorization of biomass residue materials, nutritional guiding, and entrepreneurial skills. The project will also foster international cooperation with other EU-Africa and inter-African projects (FNSSA) e.g. by organising common conferences or workshops, technology transfer and training videos.
The project is designed by a strong multidisciplinary consortium of 20 partners, dominated by 15 African actors from all four focus countries with deep understanding of local needs, and supported by 5 European partners.
Champ scientifique
- social sciencessociologysocial issuessocial inequalities
- social scienceseconomics and businesseconomicsproduction economicsproductivity
- engineering and technologyother engineering and technologiesfood technologyfood safety
- agricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesagriculture
- agricultural sciencesagricultural biotechnologybiomass
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RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinateur
02150 Espoo
Finlande