POST-HARVEST & AGRO-PROCESSING...

POST-HARVEST & AGRO-PROCESSING REGIONAL WORKSHOP REPORT

The Botanical Beach Hotel, Entebbe

3rd - 5th April 2013

FACILITATOR: MARIA NASSUNA-MUSOKE

DOCUMENTER: AHMED ZZIWA

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This report documents the post-harvest handling & agro-processing regional

workshop held from 3rd

to 5th

April 2013 at Botanical Beach Hotel, Entebbe,

Uganda. The report is a documentation of the proceedings and outcomes of the

workshop without interpretation. It serves as a reference document for CCRP

grantees and other workshop participants, providing details of what transpired.

The executive summary highlights the background, process and key outputs of the

workshop.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS ACRONYMS .................................................................................................................................................... IV

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .................................................................................................................................... V

1.0 OPENING AND WORKSHOP OBJECTIVES............................................................................................. 9

1.1 WELCOME REMARKS ................................................................................................................................. 9

1.2 PARTICIPANTS’ INTRODUCTION AND EXPECTATIONS ......................................................................................... 9

1.3 WORKSHOP OBJECTIVES ........................................................................................................................... 10

1.4 ANTICIPATED OUTPUTS ............................................................................................................................ 10

1.5 THE WORKSHOP PROCESS......................................................................................................................... 11

1.6 SOME PRINCIPLES FOR WORKING TOGETHER ................................................................................................. 11

2.0 BACKGROUND PRESENTATIONS ....................................................................................................... 12

2.1 ABOUT THE MCKNIGHT FOUNDATION’S COLLABORATIVE CROP RESEARCH PROGRAM BY REBECCA ......................... 12

2.2 FOOD PROCESSING AND PRESERVATION: IMPLICATIONS FOR NUTRITION, FOOD SECURITY AND LIVELIHOODS BY JOHN

MUYONGA ............................................................................................................................................. 13

2.3 FOOD PROCESSING AS A TOOL FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT: GLOBAL EXAMPLES BY ALASTAIR HICKS ........................... 13

2.4 POST- HARVEST LOSSES EHAF: CURRENT STATUS AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR REDUCTION BY PROF A. KAAYA ............... 14

3.0 SHARING EXPERIENCES AND SUCCESS STORIES ................................................................................ 16

3.1 EXPERIENCES IN PROMOTING COMMUNITY POST-HARVEST AND AGRO PROCESSING TECHNOLOGIES IN KENYA BY RHODA

NJUGA .................................................................................................................................................. 16

3.2 SASAKAWA’S EXPERIENCES IN PROMOTING COMMUNITY POST-HARVEST TECHNOLOGIES IN UGANDA BY JAMES

MURANGIRA .......................................................................................................................................... 17

3.3 EXPERIENCES IN PROMOTING AGRO-PROCESSING OF GRAIN AMARANTH BY D NAKIMBUGWE& S. SERUWO ............... 18

3.4 SEASONALITY OF FOOD SECURITY IN UGANDA BY AGNES ATYANG ..................................................................... 20

3.5 SEASONALITY AND FOOD SECURITY: A CASE STUDY FROM DEBARK, SEMIEN GONDER, ETHIOPIA BY MORGAN RUELLE . 21

3.6 POTENTIAL CONTRIBUTION OF FOOD PROCESSING TO COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT BY YUSUF BYARUHANGA .............. 21

3.7 VALUE CHAINS FOR NUTRITION BY BIBI GIYOSE ............................................................................................. 23

3.8 SOCIAL CONSIDERATIONS TO ENHANCE BENEFIT OF PH&AP INTERVENTIONS ..................................................... 23

4.0 LESSONS,LEARNT FROM THE PRESENTATIONS ................................................................................. 24

5.0 TOWARDS A POST-HARVEST RESEARCH STRATEGY .......................................................................... 28

5.1 SUCCESS AND FAILURE FACTORS FOR ACHIEVING FOOD SECURITY, NUTRITION & LIVELIHOODS THROUGH COMMUNITY

LEVEL AGRO-PROCESSING AND POST-HARVEST TECHNOLOGIES IN E/HAF ............................................................ 28

5.2 TRANSFORMING SUCCESS & FAILURE FACTORS INTO STRATEGIES AND ACTIONS FOR IMPROVING NUTRITION, FOOD

SECURITY & LIVELIHOODS THROUGH COMMUNITY LEVEL PH&AP TECHNOLOGIES ................................................ 29

5.3 CONSTRUCTING A MODEL FOR APPLICATION OF POST HARVEST HANDLING AND AGRO-PROCESSING FOR IMPROVED

NUTRITION, FOOD SECURITY AND LIVELIHOODS IN EHAF .................................................................................. 35

5.3.1 Generic Model ................................................................................................................................ 35

5.3.2 Application of developed model ..................................................................................................... 36

6.0. REFINING CCRP PROJECTS USING THE GENERIC MODEL ................................................................... 41

6.1 CHICKPEA/COWPEA ................................................................................................................................. 41

6.2 TEF AND GRAIN AMARANTH ...................................................................................................................... 42

6.3 SORGHUM/MILLET PROJECT ...................................................................................................................... 43

6.4 ENSET PROJECT ....................................................................................................................................... 45

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7.0. GENERAL DISCUSSIONS .................................................................................................................... 47

8.0 CLOSING ........................................................................................................................................... 48

8.1 NEXT STEPS ............................................................................................................................................ 48

8.2 WORKSHOP EVALUATION AND CLOSURE ...................................................................................................... 48

8.3 CLOSING REMARKS .................................................................................................................................. 49

ANNEXES ....................................................................................................................................................... 50

ANNEX 1: LIST OF PARTICIPANTS AND FACILITATORS .................................................................................................... 50

ANNEX 2: SUMMARY OF WORKSHOP PROGRAM ......................................................................................................... 51

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ACRONYMS AEI Agro-ecological intensification

APT Agro Processing Technologies

CCRP Collaborative Crop Research Program

CLMV Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam

CNHW Community Nutrition and Health Worker

FP Food Processing

FSNL Food, Security, Nutrition and Livelihoods

GA Grain Amaranths

KAP Knowledge, attitudes and practices

MF McKnight Foundation

MoA Ministry of Agriculture

MSMEs Micro and Small Micro Enterprises

PH Post-harvest

PHAP Postharvest and Agro-processing

SAA Sasakawa Africa Association

TA Technical Assistance

UCA Uganda Cooperative Alliance

UCA Uganda Crop Alliance

VEDCO Volunteer Efforts for Development Concerns

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Background

Over the last decade the McKnight foundation has been supporting R&D efforts in the EHAf

region. Current projects cover research on sweet potato, tef, finger millet, sorghum, banana,

enset, cowpea, chickpea and grain amaranth. Most of the CCRP projects are focused on

increasing agricultural production to improve nutrition, food security, livelihoods and

sustainability in disadvantaged communities in the region. Despite the successes in this

direction, food insecurity and poor livelihoods in Africa and many other developing

countries continue to prevail. This is partly due to high post- harvest losses, poor quality of

food supply, limited value addition, limited product diversity and low farm gate prices.

It is upon this argument that a regional workshop to bring together R&D practitioners in the

region was organized to map ways of effectively promoting community level adoption of

appropriate agro-processing and post-harvest technologies in a way that could potentially

leverage the investments in increased production. The theme of the workshop was

“Community level food processing to improve food security, nutrition, livelihoods and

sustainability”. Three areas were recognized as very important to the success of the

discussions, i.e. (i) improvement of quality of agricultural products and reduction in post-

harvest losses (ii) promotion of supply of nutritious food products to address nutritional

deficiencies and (iii) promotion of village-based food processing to diversify household

income sources. The 3-day workshop was held from April 2 – 5, 2013 at Imperial Botanical

Beach Hotel, Entebbe, Uganda and was attended by 40 participants representing researchers,

development workers, farmers and government personnel.

The workshop was fully participatory and involved the stepwise flow of activities and

results

(1). Creating a common understanding of post-harvest losses & agro-processing as a

tool for food security, nutrition and livelihoods

(2). Evaluating the current state of affairs related to food post harvest handling and

processing in the EHAf region

(3). Discussions of the implications and potential applications for food post harvest

handling and processing

(4). Distilling of lessons from the presentations and discussions

(5). Identifying success and failure factors in making post harvest handling and food

processing technologies work to create sustainable food security, nutrition &

livelihoods in the region

(6). Developing a model to operationalize post harvest handling and processing

technologies for sustainable food security, nutrition & livelihoods

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Observations & lessons learnt from the presentations & discussions

1. Despite tremendous achievements in productivity geared towards food security and

increased incomes high post harvest losses exist, contributing to the persistence of

food insecurity and poor livelihood in the EHAf region

2. There is evidence that communities are capable of transforming gaps/challenges

arising out of post-harvest losses and low farm gate prices into opportunities through

agro processing technologies. The pineapple and banana wine production in Uganda

as well as production of high quality cassava flour in Nigeria have demonstrated:

� Increased farm gate prices translating into increased incomes & livelihoods

� Creation of employment by the emerging rural micro- and small scale

enterprises

� Increased gross incomes up to 50% from Cassava

� Access to wider & new markets

� Opportunities for improved entrepreneurial skills through active participation

in training

� Addressing of malnutrition among children

� Availability of a variety of complementary weaning foods on the market.

The above processes however, are still inefficient due to challenges that occur at

various points in the value chains

3. For post harvest and agro-processing technologies to significantly contribute to

sustainable food security, nutrition and livelihood, community empowerment

through capacity building & knowledge acquisition is required. This should include

raising awareness on the economic and nutritional advantages that may accrue of

proper post harvest handling and processing interventions.

4. Beyond the post harvest and agro-processing technologies, attendant innovative

interventions to cope with larger operational environmental influences such as

infrastructure development, private sector involvement, cooperatives are necessary

5. The social cultural contexts of the communities & customizing the technologies

/innovations to their needs & preferences have to be understood

6. Participatory involvement of the various social groups in the communities to tap onto

their indigenous knowledge will make it more effective. Thus the technologies must

not only be relevant but they must be sustainable

7. There is need for communication and information sharing which can be achieved

through learning platforms for different players in the value chain

8. Product quality, hygiene and safety assurance is mandatory at all stages of the value

chain

9. Innovations may fail if there is no advocacy & lobbying for financial, policy &

institutional framework support

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Success/failure factors in achieving Food Security, Nutrition & Livelihoods through Post harvest Technology and Food Processing Technologies as a region

i. Understanding the social cultural contexts of the communities & customizing the

technologies /innovations to their needs & preferences

ii. Relevance & sustainability of the technologies

iii. Involvement of the various social groups in the communities to tap onto their

indigenous knowledge

iv. Community empowerment through capacity building & knowledge acquisition

v. Innovative interventions to cope with larger operational environmental influences

such as infrastructure development, private sector involvement, cooperatives etc.

vi. Communication and information sharing as learning platforms among all players in

the value chain

vii. Product quality, hygiene and safety assurance at all stages of the value chain

viii. Financial, policy & institutional framework support

These success/failure factors were linked together to come up with a logical framework of the

various success factors that can guide the design and implementation of CCRP projects with

a post harvest and agro-processing lens. The model (Fig 1) stresses the importance of:

understanding the contexts (social, agro-ecological, political, etc.) of the target community

and coming up with clear targets and objectives; understanding the technical and social

options; doing R&D based on evidence while building capacity, providing support and

comparing alternatives; evaluating the outcomes and assessing their relevance to the

community and case under R&D. It allows for wider, effective and sustainable application of

regionally adaptable post-harvest and agro-processing technologies and interventions for

addressing food security, nutrition and livelihoods. The model is iterative and allows for

lesson learning and improvement along the cycle.

Fig 1: Generic model for implementing Research and devel

harvesting and Agro processing technologies for food security, nutrition and livelihoods

Strategies and actions for operationalizing the model

Strategies and actions for incorporating and improving nutrition, food security and

livelihoods in CCRP projects through harvest and agro processing technologies

(i) A detailed example of how to operationalize the above generic model

(ii) The on-going CCRP teams discu

to address gaps for utilization of

Pg. viii

Generic model for implementing Research and development for community level post


Strategies and actions for operationalizing the model

actions for incorporating and improving nutrition, food security and

livelihoods in CCRP projects through harvest and agro processing technologies

of how to operationalize the above generic model

discussed where they needed to modify their CCRP projects

to address gaps for utilization of PH&AP technologies

opment for community level post


actions for incorporating and improving nutrition, food security and

included

modify their CCRP projects

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1.0 OPENING AND WORKSHOP OBJECTIVES

1.1 Welcome Remarks

The meeting started with welcoming remarks from Prof. John Muyonga – the convener; who

warmly welcomed participant to the meeting. He urged participants to feel free, relax, and

use the meeting as an opportunity to know each other, and share experiences. He thanked

McKnight Foundation for funding the post-harvest workshop. John informed participants

that the workshop was organised to explore postharvest handling and agro processing as a

tool for improving nutrition, food security and livelihoods for resource constrained

communities. He hoped that participants would network closely on various issues related to

the theme of the workshop. He then introduced the facilitator - Maria to guide the process.

1.2 Participants’ Introduction and Expectations

Maria requested the participants to introduce themselves briefly by sharing their names,

organisations and positions. Members of CCRP projects also mentioned the projects they are

part of.

Composition of participants

Participants were drawn from research, development work and government (See list of

participants in Annex 1). Notably about 80% of participants were CCRP members. The CCRP

projects represented in the workshop were: - finger millet, grain amaranth, chickpea, and

cowpea, sorghum, and legumes and food security.

Expectations and Dislikes

Participants shared their expectations and things to avoid during the workshop.

Expectations Things to avoid

∗ Commitment to actions

∗ Novel approaches towards food security and

nutrition

∗ Innovative ideas of improving nutrition and

minimising post-harvest losses

∗ Share experiences and emphasize diversity

∗ Common understanding of the term post-harvest

losses

∗ Networking

∗ Drafting an implementable strategy

∗ Knowledge on processing and improvement of

nutrient availability

∗ Progress on upgrading traditional food

production technologies in terms of nutritional

value and quality

∗ Post-harvest stakeholder platform

∗ Poor time management/time

wasting

∗ Getting in the box

∗ Coming late and exceeding

allocated time

∗ Dozing

∗ Open laptops during sessions

∗ Mobile phone interruptions and

unnecessary movements

∗ Duplication of efforts

∗ Unrealistic solutions/strategies

∗ Business as usual

∗ Jargon

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1.3 Workshop Objectives

The facilitator, Maria, presented the workshop objectives as:

Main Objective

• Develop a model for utilization of agro-processing and post-harvest technologies by

researchers, development workers, policy makers & agricultural practitioners

Specific Objectives

1. Share experiences on the potential role of agro-processing and post-harvest

technologies in the improvement of nutrition, food security, livelihoods and

sustainability for resource constrained agricultural communities, and on prospects for

successful utilization of food technology for development.

2. Assess prospects for utilizing agro-processing and post-harvest technologies for

improvement of nutrition, food security, livelihoods and sustainability for resource

constrained agricultural communities in Ehaf region.

3. Develop a strategy for wider, effective and sustainable application of regionally

adaptable post-harvest and agro-processing technologies and interventions for

addressing food security, livelihoods in the Ehaf Region.

4. Initiate designing of interventions for utilization of agro-processing and post-harvest

technologies for improvement of food security, nutrition, livelihoods and

sustainability for resource constrained agricultural communities in Ehaf region.

1.4 Anticipated Outputs

1. Lesson learnt & gaps in ongoing CCRP projects regarding utilization of agro-

processing & post-harvest technologies for improvement of nutrition, food security,

livelihoods & sustainability for resource constrained agricultural communities

identified

2. General principles on how to nutritionalise agriculture for resource constrained

agricultural communities identified

3. A generic model for effective & sustainable application of regionally adaptable post-

harvest & agro-processing technologies & interventions that connect Agriculture to

Nutrition identified

4. Priority research intervention for applying post-harvest & agro-processing

technologies & interventions to connect agriculture to nutrition agreed upon & un

packed

5. Ingredients for modifying ongoing CCRP projects to address gaps for utilization of

agro-processing and post-harvest technologies for resource constrained agricultural

communities in East and Horn of Africa region obtained

6. Information regarding the upcoming call for two concepts on agro-processing & post-

harvest technologies for improvement of nutrition, food security, livelihoods &

sustainability for resource constrained agricultural communities clarified

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1.5 The Workshop Process

1. Creating common understanding of post-harvest handling & agro-processing as a

tool

2. Receiving information regarding the current state of affairs with respect to post-

harvest handling & agro-processing

3. Identifying lessons & gaps in what we are currently doing

4. Analyzing the implications and potential applications of post-harvest handling &

agro-processing technologies

5. Identifying lessons, challenges & gaps

6. Towards a strategy/model/

i. Success & failure factors for effective & sustainable application of regionally

adaptable post-harvest & agro-processing technologies & interventions that

connect Agriculture to Nutrition in the E/HAf region

ii. Identifying promising strategies

7. Towards Implementation

i. Agreeing on interventions that address the above within CCRP projects

ii. Agreeing on timelines for CCRP projects to apply lessons taken to improve the

work plans

iii. Receiving clarification regarding upcoming call from McKnight Foundation for

two concepts on agro-processing & post-harvest technologies for improvement

of nutrition, food security, livelihoods & sustainability for resource constrained

agricultural communities clarified

1.6 Some Principles for working together

To guide interaction and ensure productive

engagement, Maria presented some

facilitation principles. The core values were:

- open dialogue, inclusiveness, and

appreciation of others’ contributions;

constructive controversy and collective

ownership of the process and outcome;

creativity – thinking out of the “box” to

generate new ideas; transparency and

integrity to deal with issues and realities;

and informality and relaxed atmosphere

without barriers to networking and free

interaction. She told participants that the

meeting was intended to be iterative in

nature to clarify and take into account emerging issues in an informal but constructive

atmosphere.

Guidelines for interaction at the tables:

• Listen more than you talk

• Avoid speeches – be straight to the point

• Encourage the quiet ones

• Share tasks during group work & presentations

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• Be conscious about time management

• Avoid disruptions e.g. phone calls, e-things

2.0 BACKGROUND PRESENTATIONS

The key highlights of the various presentations have been captured in the report. Details of

presentations can be accessed

at:https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BwJ7WMcBj5A6bEpGcUtDWFNrRFk&usp=sharing

2.1 About the McKnight Foundation’s Collaborative Crop Research Program by Rebecca

On behalf of McKnight Foundation Rebecca thanked Prof. John Muyonga and his team for

convening the workshop and acknowledged McKnight Foundation for funding the

workshop. She highlighted the International Programs at McKnight and also talked about

the Collaborative Crop Research Program (CCRP) and specifically noted that the funding for

CCRP programs and projects has increased from $2M/year in 1993 to 10M/year in 2013.

Rebecca paid special tribute to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation who contribute half of

the CCRP funds. She highlighted the CCRP Communities of Practice (CoP) aimed at sharing

experiences among the grantees. She also informed participants about the Collaborative roles

in CCRP with local and international NGOs, local and international universities, research

institutes, NARS and CGIAR. Rebecca also reiterated CCRP’s desire of improving the

performance of agricultural systems through integration of ecological principles into farm &

system management and the fact that Agro-ecological intensification (AEI) is one of the key

considerations in CCRP projects. She also emphasized MF’s desire for diversified value

chains (VC) mainly for resilience and dietary purposes. She noted that VCs need AEI and

AEI needs VCs. She reiterated that the regionally-important crops for CCRP in the East &

Horn of Africa region were sweet potato, tef, finger millet, sorghum, banana, enset, legumes,

cowpea, chickpea and grain amaranth. She underscored the need to focus on productivity,

diversification, nutrition, and income in CCRP projects (i.e. AEI interventions should

contribute to better livelihoods, nutrition, productivity and sustainability). She also

highlighted the need to seek better options for rural families. She noted that the post-harvest

meeting was expected to provide an avenue of sharing lessons and learning from each other;

discussing two small exploratory grants, coming up with key messages to larger donor and

public, and developing a generic framework for post-harvest issues.

Reactions to Presentation

• CCRP projects need to emphasise a network of value addition (economic, nutrition

and sustainability) and see when to make trade-offs.

• There is need to consider nutritional value of food products for home consumption

and home consumption should not be compromised by focusing on products for sale

• There is need for human capacity development and awareness creation specifically

on entrepreneurial skills and food handling. This may necessitate designing a short

tailor-made curriculum.

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• During experience sharing CCRP teams should undertake critical self-analysis and

diagnosis of where they are weak so that they can improve their research plans.

2.2 Food processing and preservation: implications for nutrition, food security and livelihoods by John Muyonga

Prof. Muyonga gave the background to the meeting and stressed that drivers were the

increasing food insecurity in the world demonstrated by the world hunger map. He stressed

the rationale of focusing on improved food post-harvest handling and processing to address

post-harvest quantitative and qualitative food losses. He also emphasised the need for better

storage facilities and the importance of product stabilisation to improve market access (better

incomes) and to cater for food needs in periods of limited harvests resulting from seasonal

variations. He observed that processing helps to create diversity and improve market access.

He also stated that processing and post-harvest handling enhances food safety and improves

nutritional value. John also highlighted fortification of staple foods as a cost effective

approach to alleviation of micronutrient deficiencies. He stressed the need to embrace

“Secondary” Agriculture - go beyond just production and develop a culture of food

processing in Africa.

Reactions to Presentation

• Value chain approaches should also consider improving the nutrition status of foods

for local consumption rather than focusing on offering the best quality for export at

the expense of nutritional security of the rural poor.

• CCRP projects should think about shorter value chains as simple as “garden to child”

for improved nutrition of the target communities.

• Value chains are not usually linear – it is important to consider adding economic

value and nutritional value in a sustainable manner.

• There is need to develop simplified rural based curriculum to enlighten the farmers

more on postharvest handling and simple processing approaches.

2.3 Food processing as a tool for rural development: global examples by Alastair Hicks

Dr. Alastair shared experiences from the FAO project on village level food processing

focusing on empowerment by enterprise skills development in CLMV countries. He

highlighted the following:-

• Agriculture is the most important livelihood in CLMV countries due to limited

employment opportunities in rural areas and unemployment is high for urban youth.

• Food processing based on simple technologies is an income generating activity for

rural women and is compatible with their traditional roles in food preparation.

• The potential of village food processing to reduce poverty in rural areas and to

contribute to food security at household level.

• The constraints to traditional food processing such as poor hygienic conditions; food

safety; shelf life; packaging and environment; limited technical inputs and little

Pg. 14

capital for research and development; few facilities for testing food; poor market

channels; no facilities for packaging; reliance on fuel woods and inability to compete

with cheap imports.

Gaps, lessons and opportunities identified

• There are challenges of inappropriate packaging and preservation of foods resulting in

high volumes of non-biodegradable waste. There is need to think about

environmentally friendly packaging options e.g. use of biodegradable and recyclable

materials, transformation of packaging materials.

• Food processing should consider nutritional aspects

• Food processing should minimise danger and contribution to communicable diseases

• Packaging minimisation can address the challenges related to disposal of packaging

materials

• Poor disposal of packaging materials is an environmental management challenge that

calls for broader thinking to incorporate an advocacy angle in CCRP projects

• Changing attitudes of rural farmers necessitates an awareness creation component in

CCRP projects

• There is need to addressing hygienic concerns in food processing in EHAf region

2.4 Post- harvest losses EHAf: current status and opportunities for reduction by Prof A. Kaaya

Prof. Kaaya highlighted the importance of agriculture to food security, nutrition and

livelihoods in the EHAf region. He talked about the current status of post-harvest losses in

EHAf region that undermines agriculture’s potential to contribute to socio-economic

development. He underlined the consistent food insecurity and nutritional deficiency despite

previous efforts and stressed the importance of postharvest systems in the quest to minimise

postharvest food losses (quantitative and qualitative). He also talked about aflatoxins and

their effects on food quality and safety and ultimately their contribution to economic losses

in the chain. He also discussed the contribution of pre-harvest pests and diseases; and

inappropriate post-harvest processing and handling to the total food losses in EHAf. As a

way forward, Prof. Kaaya shared the existing opportunities for postharvest loss reduction in

the region including: the contributory factors to the current food losses; agriculture being the

mainstay in EHAf countries; willingness of the key stakeholders to reduce post harvest

losses; presence of supportive development partners and institutions addressing post harvest

R&D; wealth of knowledge in the region and presence of trained Scientists and experts to

address post harvest losses; and availability of technologies and information to estimate

losses.

Points for Clarification

Question: How does maturity at harvest affect post harvest losses?

Response: Whatever the state of maturity at harvesting, post harvest losses depend more on

the mode of drying used – with better methods of drying minimising losses.

Pg. 15

Question: Legumes and root crops e.g. cassava have very high post-harvest losses; where is

the data?

Response: The focus of the presentation was mainly on cereals given their economic and

food security value in EHAf region but that data exists.

Question: What are the reasons behind specific post-harvest losses by country and crop?

Response: There are country and crop specific differences on post harvest losses that can be

explained by the importance of specific crops to countries. For example, tef, a

major crop in Ethiopia is hardly affected by storage pests and therefore records

low post harvest loss.

Question: Are Cassava chips affected by aflatoxins?

Response: The mode of drying has an impact on aflatoxin contamination. For instance the

process of drying cassava chips especially on bare ground leads to contamination

by moulds and consequently aflatoxins development. However, it should be

noted that moulds are useful in fermentation process that is used in some value

addition procedures.

Question: Is it a fact that pests play a major role in causing post-harvest losses; and if so to

what extent?

Response: The extent to which pests contribute to post-harvest losses depends on the

commodity; with perishable commodities that received proper disease and pest

management experiencing limited post-harvest losses due to pests. However,

post-harvest losses are bigger for commodities under long-term storage.

Gaps, lessons and opportunities identified

• There is a lot of data on post harvest losses in cereals rather than other perishable

foods because of the importance of cereals in the EHAf region.

• Data presented focuses on aflatoxin yet there are many other mycotoxins causing

qualitative post-harvest losses; this is a gap that needs further investigation.

• The market has a key role to play but there seems to be no uniform standard on

desired product food quality on the market yet standards bodies such as the Uganda

Bureau of Standards have existing food quality standards. This is mainly because

there has been limited awareness creation by the different research and development

institutions. This presents an opportunity – the need for a concerted effort of all

stakeholders to raise awareness on the existing food quality standards. There is also

need to sensitise and empower the consumers to demand for and be willing to pay

for quality commodities.

• There is need to improve design and construction of agricultural processing

technologies in order to minimise the spoilage during processing and the consequent

aflatoxin post-harvest contamination.

Pg. 16

3.0 SHARING EXPERIENCES AND SUCCESS STORIES

3.1 Experiences in promoting community post-harvest and agro processing technologies in Kenya by Rhoda Njuga

In her presentation, Dr. Rhoda Nungo explained how Kenya’s agricultural sector is

dominated with primary production, limited information on postharvest handling, agro-

processing and product promotion of staple foods; which translates into high postharvest

losses; few diversified nutritious products, few job opportunities, low incomes and high

levels of poverty. She noted that the above factors justify the need for agro-processing and

post harvest technologies. Rhoda thus shared Kenya’s experiences in promoting community

postharvest and agro processing of sweetpotatoes and finger millet. She noted that Kenya

Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) and other R&D partners have spearheaded

interventions leading to introduction of Orange fleshed sweetpotatoes rich in Vitamin A and

finger millet varieties. She spoke about their efforts to promote agro-processing and post

harvest technologies, including development of diverse nutritious sweetpotato and finger

millet products; participatory promotion trainings for researchers, Ministry of Agriculture

staff and farmer groups; and training and skills hands-on practice by farmer groups as well

as nutrition education. She talked about the products promotion forums and other efforts

such as products nutrient analysis. She talked about capacity building efforts such as agro-

processing ToT farmer training, farmers’ capacity building in milling and agro-processing of

sweet potatoes and finger millet. She also highlighted the challenges to agro-processing e.g.

unreliable supply and low quality of raw materials, lack of technical know-how and training

facilities and appropriate equipment inadequate infrastructure, water and electricity; and

lack of product standards. Rhoda ended her talk by highlighting some new opportunities to

AP&PH e.g. new partnerships for scaling out products; market place for nutritious foods and

the Biodiversity Food and nutrition among others.

Point of Clarification

Question: It seems nutrition and processing is approached from a commodity angle; is it the

best approach?

Response: The emphasis in the CCRP project is research on finger millet with a health focus;

that is why all types of flour are built around finger millet.

Question: Comment on the processing and consumption of Orange Fleshed Sweet Potato

(OFSP) versus the traditional white variety?

Response: Processing is mainly of OFSP and farmers are still using the traditional white

variety.

Question: Why some farmers are not adopting OFSP?

Response: There are challenges with adoption of OFSP depending on what farmers grow

crops for; those interested in commercialisation are slowly adopting OFSP but

those interested in food and nutritional security are still glued to the traditional

variety.

Question: How the issue of decontamination is addressed?

Response: It is not quite easy but a series of sieves are used to help minimise contamination.

Pg. 17

3.2 Sasakawa’s experiences in promoting community post-harvest technologies in Uganda by James Murangira

James Murangira, Theme Coordinator PHAP; and Dr. Roselline Nyamutale - Country

Director shared Sasakawa’s experiences in promoting community post-harvest technologies

in Uganda. They highlighted:-

• The mission, vision and strategic objectives of Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA)

• SAA’s value chain approach

• Specific objectives of SAA’s postharvest and agro-processing extension arm all geared

towards improving postharvest handling and agro-processing processes in the target

communities.

• PHAP implementation strategy based on participatory approaches.

• A number of PHAP technologies developed and being promoted.

• SAA’s achievements and challenges in agro-processing and post-harvest handling and

the impacts thereof.

• The increasing trend of food processing at community level as evidenced by the

number food processing equipments in communities where SAA operates.

• The contribution of community level food processing to improved food security,

nutrition and incomes/livelihoods in Uganda.

Discussion Points

Question: Is it true that SASAKAWA’s approach is to stick to one crop which in itself is

against diversification which is promoted by CCRP projects?

Response: SASAKAWA believes that specialisation requires mass production of specific

proven crops so that farmers can benefit from economies of scale and that is why

focus is on specific crops.

• Production and fabrication of Agro Processing Technologies (APT) is not standardised

and as such imperfections and losses such as breakage of grains at processing stage are

directly linked to poor technologies. Research and development institutions need to

focus on improving the designs and construction of the technologies to minimise the

losses at processing stage.

• There are a number of pirated/duplicated AP technologies which highlights the

inadequate control and regulations that perpetuate processing losses in the value chain.

Pg. 18

3.3 Experiences in promoting agro-processing of grain amaranth by D Nakimbugwe & S. Seruwo

Dr. Dorothy Nankimbugwe shared her team’s experiences in promoting Grain Amaranths

(GA), a crop whose production and consumption in Uganda was previously limited due to

limited knowledge about its high nutritional content, short growing period and easy

digestibility compared to other cereal grains and common staples. She shared her

experiences with their McKnight Foundation (MF) funded GA project whose objectives are

promoting: increased GA consumption; GA value addition; and increased GA production for

improved nutrition security and incomes. She explained that GA value addition was

intended to improve the nutrition, food security and incomes of communities. On other hand

increased GA consumption was aimed at giving nutritional benefits to consumers by

developing recipes and processing protocols for highly acceptable and nutritious GA

products to fill nutrient gaps in dietary intake and to expand market access for GA farmers.

She noted that through the GA project farmers have been trained on proper postharvest

handling and agro-processing and are processing GA into flours, composites and snacks. She

also noted that farmers participate in participatory recipe development to incorporate GA

into family meals for purposes of filling nutrient gaps. She highlighted the benefits to

communities from GA processing e.g.better market access, increased profitability, better

control of sale price and improved utilization of farmer time. She also highlighted the

challenges of community level GA processing e.g. challenges with milling, difficulty in

cleaning grain, access to equipment and quality input, availability and cost of packaging

material, skills and knowledge gap. She noted that through their industrial level GA

processing component products such as blended flours, infant formulation, snack bars,

breakfast cereals and bread have been developed and these have contributed to widening of

markets for grain and job creation. She also listed the achievements of the project e.g.

availing nutritious products for management of malnutrition, increase in number of farmers

who have adopted GA, increase in demand for GA creating market for farmers, GA products

in mainstream markets and a number of community based value addition enterprises

started, creating jobs and incomes. Ms Rose Tinka gave a live testimony of the benefits of GA

in the rural communities below.

Pg. 19

Discussion Points

Question: Does the GA team have enough experience to document participatory

technology/recipe development processes?

Response: There is an MSc student who has documented the process. There is also a draft

model which can be improved upon but the team is still looking out for what is

available that serve as a starting points.

Question: Why GA pancakes have low levels of proteins?

Response: The base ingredients in pan cakes (cassava and sweet potatoes) are generally low

in protein content.

• The proportions of grain amaranth in various flour combinations vary with the

commodities that are being combined. There is need to balance family uptake (food

security) and market development.

• Community needs assessment is the driving factor in development of GA flour

combinations and that is why in some communities the emphasis is mainly on

commercial benefits of the products. In malnourished communities the focus is on short

value chains, i.e. “family farm to family table”. Promoting products to be directly

consumed by farmers minimises the problem of people getting fed-up with specific

products with no direct benefits.

• To adequately address nutrient deficiencies may necessitate scanning the market and

looking at commodities in the country with a view of identifying those which can be

combined with others to come up with nutrient adequate products.

Rose was trained as a Community Nutrition and Health Worker (CNHW) by

VEDCO to respond to the wide-spread malnutrition in Namasagali – Kamuli

district. Rose was attracted to Grain Amaranth by its potential nutritional

benefits and started growing it to help in her work of treating the

malnourished children. At that time she would give out a greater percentage

of the Grain Amaranth for free to neighbours and the neighbours who took

it had improved health; A kilogram of GA then was going at UGX 500. After

training on Grain Amaranth value addition, Rose realised that there was a

chance to get more than 500UGX. She then started making flour blends to

sell to her clients including HIV/AIDS patients. Over time, with processing,

value addition and diversified flour products the demand increased and the

price per kilo rose to UGX 2500. Since that time, she has developed a range

of products for various end-user categories and the price is still rising. Rose

proudly talks about the benefits of her involvement in GA growing and

processing as: having the privilege to train and or advise other farmers;

networking with different calibres of people involved in Amaranth R&D

projects; and improved livelihood as a result of income from the GA sales. Rose giving her story

Pg. 20

3.4 Seasonality of Food Security in Uganda by Agnes Atyang

Agnes Atyang talked about the impact of seasonality on food security and potential for

mitigation through agro-processing in Uganda. She focused on: -

• The concept of food security with specific emphasis on the dimensions of food security

e.g. access, stability, and utilisation.

• Seasonal food insecurity and how it relates to seasonal fluctuations in the climate,

cropping patterns, work opportunities, prevalence of diseases, etc.

• Illustrating the fact that seasonality highlights times of the year when the food gap and

food needs are likely to be greatest; and the need to smoothen consumption; increase

availability in lean season.

• Discussing the seasonal map of Uganda and emphasising the fact there are regions with

bimodal rainy seasons whereas others have one season.

• The seasonal calendar to further explain seasonality, seasonal fluctuations and their

impact on food security.

• How to address food availability through processing during the harvest season,

reducing post-harvest losses, and food preservation and processing to increase the

availability of otherwise seasonal micro-nutrient-rich perishable foods.

• Looking at food processing as a tool for increased physical access and increased income

to ensure economic access; and using agro-processing as a tool to diversify livelihoods

of actors in the processing/value chain.

• How to address utilization challenges by directly improving food safety and quality,

provision of micro nutrients during off-season and improved access to health care

using accrued income.

• Ensuring stability by addressing access, utilisation and availability.

Points of Clarification

Question: How to ensure that rural poor livelihoods are scaled up given the fact that

resource poor rarely get a bumper harvest?

Response: It is important to appreciate the fact that livelihoods in a community are very

diverse and heavily influenced by resources at peoples’ disposal. Developing

strategies and beneficial linkages for different groups and ensuring that groups

in different strata co-exist by supporting each other for mutual benefit is the way

to go. For instance poor people can sell labour to the rich for an income and the

rich benefit through large scale production.

Question: How predictable are the rainfall patterns in Uganda?

Response: Data from meteorological stations is 75% accurate and the practice usually is to

present what is normal and see how to respond to a likely change.

Pg. 21

3.5 Seasonality and food security: A case study from Debark, Semien Gonder, Ethiopia by Morgan Ruelle

Morgan made a presentation of his PhD study on seasonality and food security. He briefly

explained seasonality and the significance of seasonal variation to food security. He

explained how farming systems can adapt to changes in seasonality using a case study from

Debark, Ethiopia. He talked about the critical periods in tropical farming systems as being

the start of the rains when high labor requirements overlap with lowest food availability and

the end of the rains when mature/harvested crops need time to dry and attenuated rainy

seasons that increase post-harvest losses. He also highlighted the changes in seasonality due

to climate change and the options to adapt to new variability in seasonality such as

diversification of resources, use of resilient resources, development of storage technologies,

and reliance on social networks beyond the household. He also underlined the technical

storage practices in Ethiopia e.g. grains stored in gota (traditional bins) and qerchat (baskets);

garlic and some spices hanged to dry; fruits and vegetables only consumed fresh, surplus

sold at market; extra potatoes stored in fields; milk and tella (traditional alchohol) stored in

qel (gourds) and plastic containers. He also highlighted the methods used in the study,

preliminary findings and future research directions for discussion.

3.6 Potential contribution of food processing to community development by Yusuf Byaruhanga

Dr. Byaruhanga reiterated the significant contribution of crop production to farm incomes in

E/HAf region where food and nutrition insecurity, poverty and unemployment continue to

adversely affect the population. He informed that food processing can efficiently reduce

postharvest losses thus contributing to food and nutrition security and enhance market value

of food products. Dr Byaruhanga also shared some case studies of positive developments in

food processing in E/HAf region which included:-

• Big agro processors e.g. Mukwano Industries, BIDCO Industries, Nile Breweries and

East African Breweries who had a challenge of insufficient supply of oil seeds and

sorghum but used multiple interventions such as giving credit and agricultural input

supplies to farmers and promoting contract farming to boost productivity and ensure

adequate supply of raw materials to their industries. He noted that the benefits to

farmers have been ready and assured market for produce; employment creation;

increased incomes with better livelihoods and income security. With the better

incomes farmers have innovatively developed into MSMEs.

• Kangulumira Area Cooperative Enterprise (KACE) a community cooperative

enterprise under UCA which started producing and processing pineapple into juice,

wine and dried fruit flake to address the challenge of high postharvest losses and low

price of pineapple especially during harvest season. Dr. Byaruhanga noted that this

necessitated acquiring processing and entrepreneurship skills; acquiring premises

and equipment for processing. The direct benefits have been 30-50% increase in value

in addition to wider market and longer shelf life and marketing time; employment

creation. The farmers have also gained processing and entrepreneurship skills which

Pg. 22

have inspired them to start other microenterprises for improved incomes and better

livelihoods of farmers.

• Tigebwa Rural Producer Organization (RPO) a small community based rural

producer organization under UCA produces bananas and processes them into high

quality wine in response to a challenge of low farm gate prices and the desire to make

more money out of bananas. The interventions included acquiring processing and

entrepreneurship skills, premises and processing equipment. The direct benefits were

increased gross income (e.g. from an average size banana bunch the income rose from

10,000UGX to 300,000UGX); employment; improved household incomes and better

livelihoods evidenced by improved housing (iron sheets, brick & cement), better

schools for their children and increased disposable income.

• PATA – a small farmer association in Pallisa District formed with support from

SASAKAWA Africa Association focused on post-harvest handling and agro-

processing of cassava to respond to the high post-harvest losses, low price of cassava,

poverty and poor livelihoods. The value added products are flour, gari, chips and

baked products. PATA provides training facilities and training to farmer groups. The

intervention was acquiring processing skills and training in entrepreneurship and

acquiring premises and processing equipment. The direct benefits were: increased

gross incomes by 20-50%; access to wider and new markets; women gained baking

and entrepreneurship skills which inspired them to start microenterprises in baking.

There were also improved livelihoods e.g. farmers affording lunch and scholastic

materials for school going children and meeting medical bills.

• Improved ogi & gari production in Nigeriaa 10-20 years process in response to the

challenges of under nutrition of children, low nutrient content of ogi (weaning

porridge) and the lengthy process for making gari and ogi. The benefits have been: a

number of successful rural micro and small scale enterprises producing and

marketing gari and ogi; availability of a variety of complementary weaning foods on

the market; malnutrition of children partly addressed; employment created and small

trading enterprises like vending initiated and running.

• Dr. Byaruhanga also highlighted the challenges, potential opportunities and

community/social benefits of community food processing together with the pointers

for future interventions.


• The successful projects got training from the School of Food Technology, Nutrition

and Bio-engineering.

• The most successful projects had high investment (grants) from development partners,

NGOs and there was cost-sharing. Projects which were not well funded were making

slow progress and required more time to build capacity and scale.

Question: What is the logic/reason behind the transition from 10,000UGX from bananas to

300,000UGX for wine?

Response: The processing of bananas into high quality wine with a ready market in the

nearby areas explains the exponential trend in incomes.

Pg. 23

3.7 Value Chains for Nutrition by Bibi Giyose

Bibi Giyose made a presentation entitled value chains for nutrition to inform the discussion

on PH&AP for food security, nutrition and livelihoods. She highlighted the growing need to

refocus agriculture from only food security to food and nutrition security for good nutrition

and health benefits. She added that this calls for increased production, processing, storage

and marketing of nutritious foods and that food safety and safe agriculture practices can

make a contribution in the right direction. She underscored the need for a comprehensive

response at national, regional and continental level to achieve food and nutrition security.

She also gave some examples of integrating agriculture and nutrition and using a nutrition

lens to identify interventions.

3.8 Social Considerations to Enhance Benefit of PH&AP Interventions

Assoc. Prof. Peter Atekyereza highlighted the social scientific explanations that relate to post-

harvest and agro-processing interventions. He talked about social reality analysis with

specific reference to social construction of food reality and stressed that researchers and

development workers are part of the social reality. He discussed the levels of social reality

construction/analysis as being structural, socio-cultural, interpersonal and individual and

noted that the levels complement each other in R&D work. Peter also talked about

knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAPs) as products of social construction and explained

how KAPs may inform food processing and post-harvest handling research and

development work. He also noted that there are age and gender implications of KAPs and

that research and technology development should consider these carefully for success. Peter

further informed that R&D in PH &AG should consider the fact that people adopt

technologies at different rates; the adopter categories being innovators, early adopters, early

majority, late majority and laggards. He also noted that social changes affect people’s eating

habits and hence have a bearing on PH and AP. In addition, Peter discussed the process of

technology adoption with specific reference to the technology adoption life cycle; and the

influence of societal changes on technology development and adoption process. Peter posed

some important questions related to people’s behaviour, attitudes, perceptions, environment,

age, status/income levels and practices which should be considered carefully in PH &AP. He

also discussed the implications of theory and method of social sciences: the theoretical

implications are that PH and AP technologies have a functional role in society but there is

need to understand what they mean to the target population in terms of need and value; and

in terms of methods: meaning versus proportions and magnitudes e.g. how many farmers

have been reached? What do these technologies mean to them?


• The design of appropriate curricula for rural people should take cognisance of the

various adopter categories.

• Avoid coercive approaches during technology promotion for adoption but rather

emphasise rewards and make reference to model farmers and public opinion leaders.

• Upcoming CCRP projects should consider having strong social components to address

the complex social contexts of their target population.

Pg. 24

4.0 LESSONS, LEARNT FROM THE PRESENTATIONS

Based on the presentations made and from their own experiences, participants identified the

key lessons, challenges and gaps and most importantly what they needed to do differently in

their projects for better impact. These were later on synthesized by the facilitator into eight

clusters of factors for achieving Food Security, Nutrition and Livelihoods through AP&PH

Technologies and these are tabulated with the gaps, lessons and challenges as the underlying

elements:-

Community empowerment through capacity building & knowledge acquisition

• Education/training/awareness creation to the communities is very important in PH

loss management/reduction

• Communities need to appreciate the economic and nutritional advantages of PHAP

interventions

• Capacity building and skills in recommended post-harvest handling technologies

• Awareness creation about quality and premium prices (as a reward)

• Buyers for some products do not look at quality e.g. coffee when buying

• Should emphasize on diversified consumption of value added product at community

level

• Enforcement and implementation of standards; thus need for capacity building to

ensure quality products

• At community level PHP and Nutrition knowledge and skill are lacking

• Community level entrepreneur identification and support e.g. through

entrepreneurship skills development.

• Awareness of researchers farmers and Govt focused on agronomic practice

Innovative interventions to cope with larger operational environmental influences such

as infrastructure development, private sector involvement, cooperatives etc

• Need for mapping connections of the various aspects of post-harvest handing and

agro processing i.e. product development, nutrition information, safety , markets,

entrepreneurship

• Common challenges such as infrastructure, community processing need creative

solutions

• Think beyond both kitchen and labs into conversion of these products into business

enterprises

• Value addition/Agro-processing may not necessarily address nutritional security

• Infrastructure for handling and processing food is a problem

• Little is known of the nutritional outcomes of various post-harvest handling and

agro processing

• Integration of AEI into various projects e.g. multiple cropping verses mono-

cropping

• What is it that researchers and development partners are not doing in the last 50

years

• Market acceptability of products processed at community level

• Local market access for root crops

Pg. 25

• Packaging of processed products including byproducts

Understanding the social cultural contexts of the communities & customizing the

technologies /innovations to their needs & preferences

• Need to know about the needs & social context of the society before thinking about

technology transfer & adoption

• Catering for different needs in product diversification is important

• Low income groups have difficulties to bridge the gap between self-sufficiency and

income generation

• Understanding of critical factors in adoption of new technologies

• Integrating sociology into science; We know the problems, causes, solutions but why are

we not changing

• Lack of nutrient profiling of the various crop enterprises and incorporation them into the

accompanying technologies

• How to understand farmers’ needs: Cultural, attitude effects: researchers may sometimes

not easily introduce a new idea unless it is culturally acceptable.

• Sustainability for community owned interventions for agro processing and post-harvest

technologies

• Commercialization versus consumption at household level ; more emphasis on the

former

• Addressing sustainability in design of interventions

• Ensuring technology is appropriate/context specific

• Low adoption of PHAP technologies

• Poverty affects adoption of technology

• Behavioural change

Participatory involvement of the various social groups in the communities to tap onto

their indigenous knowledge

• There is need for active involvement of the community during technology transfer:

Participatory approach.

• There is a wealth of indigenous knowledge that can be tapped to enhance progress in

food processing and PH issues

• Community led/self-initiated businesses can spur sustainable post-harvest interventions

• Food and agro processing is possible at community level and should evolve at different

crops

• The potential of using people in the community as change agents: neighbours may trust

each other better than foreigners

• Value of traditional value systems and approaches still relevant

• Building on the local systems/opportunities has ready market/adoption

• Involvement of the vulnerable groups in projects

• Empowering of women have multiple benefits (income, food safety & security)

• Community participation limited

• Inadequate private sector engagement at all levels. Key in commercializing technologies

• Packaging and packaging materials are lacking; influence to the environment

Pg. 26

Communication and information sharing as learning platforms among all players in the

value chain

• A lot is being done on PHAP technology and needs to be scaled up

• Many opportunities that can be harnesses in terms of existing technology and product

• Replication of knowledge and skills sharing among the community as the case in

Thailand

• We share a lot of similarities in the EHaf region hence we need to work together:

learning for the neighbours

• Use of collapsible driers is a convenient drying technology

• Generally there is knowledge gap about PH and processing/value chain issues among

the stakeholders from farmers to consumers

• Postharvest handling technology gaps exist across regions

• Limited /lack of Information database for the PHP and nutrition

• Low linkage among the stakeholders engaged in the value chain

• Everyone from the value chain needs to meet at stakeholder platform

• absence of supportive service providers – need to network between farmers and service

providers

Product quality, hygiene and safety assurance at all stages of the value chain

• To get good quality product you need to address hygiene and safety

• There is widespread mycotoxin contaminations in our foods/feeds

• Proportion of post-harvest losses varies among crops and this calls for different types of

interventions in values chains

• Technology transfer and adoption need addressing

• To get good quality product you need to address hygiene and safety

• Enforcement and implementation of standards; thus need for capacity building to ensure

quality products

• Limited technologies for detecting and quantification of mycotoxins

• Food safety (sanitation & hygiene)

• Concerns about anti nutritional factors

Advocacy & lobbying for financial, policy & institutional framework support

• Policy briefs base on research need to be delivered to policy makers

• Lack of appropriate equipment for agro-processing of various products e.g. shellers

corresponding to various pod sizes in groundnuts

• Inadequate institutional framework for promoting (extension) postharvest technologies

in comparison to production, nutrition etc.

• Incentives and tools for different actors to address food contamination

• How to source low capital investment technologies

• Limited feasible technologies for different crops

• Some technologies are expensive

• Inadequate PHAP equipment

• High food waste along the value chain

• High postharvest losses

Pg. 27

Relevance & sustainability of the technologies

• How can household deal with food security versus seasonality

• Lack of sustainable impact assessment on PHP

• Lack of nutrient profiling of the various crop enterprises and incorporation them into the

accompanying technologies

• Addressing sustainability in design of interventions

• Ensuring technology is appropriate/context specific

• The need for equipment which can multi-task (e.g. different groundnut varieties /pod

sizes)

• Climate change threats: seasonal weather affecting rain-fed agriculture

• Improve and add value but at what cost?

• Monitoring and evaluations of projects/interventions

Lessons arising from the plenary discussion points

• Agro-processing and postharvest technologies do contribute towards linking food

security, nutrition and livelihood.

• Farmers are now acknowledging that there are benefits to value addition.

• Proper post-harvest handling improves nutrition and there is a potential to improve

nutrition given the diversity of nutritious alternative crops available

• Food Processing and preservation can change peoples’ income and livelihood: a case

of banana wine

• Post harvest and processing intervention require strengthening

• There is a huge range of philosophical positions on diversity

• There is improved utilization of grain amaranth

• The model of promoting large scale growing of specific crops as promoted by

SASAKAWA is aimed at ensuring income security whereas the CCRP approach of

promoting multiple crops is basically intended to achieve food and nutrition

security.

• There are relationships between income security and food/nutrition security is not

always straight forward. Income security may not necessarily translate into food and

nutrition security since farmers sometimes have various interests other than more

nutritious foods.

• Nonetheless the approach by some projects in the ECA region is to focus on one crop

e.g. cassava; improve its nutritional value through fortification and commercialize it

for both nutritional and income security benefits.

• The biggest opportunity to addressing community nutrition and food security

problems is when the community appreciates that there is a problem and expresses a

desire to deal with the discomfort.

• Success stories are powerful tools in motivating other farmers (skeptics) as they

demonstrate practical solutions to societal problems.

Pg. 28

5.0 TOWARDS A POST-HARVEST RESEARCH STRATEGY

5.1 Success and failure factors for achieving food security, nutrition & livelihoods through community level agro-processing and post-harvest technologies in E/HAf

Based on the discussion that had been held, and the lessons distilled, participants identified

success and failure factors for achieving food security, nutrition and livelihoods through

community level agro-processing and post-harvest technologies. The factors were clustered

as shown below.

1. Understanding the socio-cultural context

• Understanding social cultural context and relevance to communities

• Understanding and responding to barriers to entry

2. Suitability to agro-ecological context

• Productivity level sufficient for agro processing

3. Relevance of interventions to community needs

• Integrated approaches that address multiple needs.

• Interventions appropriate to diverse household communities.

• Integrating social and technological innovation

• Meet household nutrient need

• Meeting nutritional needs using available resources

• Affordability of the technologies

• Meet diverse farming systems

• Adequate volumes to meet agro processing needs

4. Defining and focusing on targets with clear strategies • Defining strategic targets

5. Characteristics of the intervention

• Complexity and labor intensiveness of the technologies

• Magnitude of the financial benefits versus investment costs

• Stability of the product

• Product quality, hygiene and safety assurance at all stages of the value chain

6. Capacity building of the community and empowerment of stakeholders • Entrepreneurial behavior/capacity of the community

• Capacity knowledge of the communities

• Knowledge, attitudes and practices of communities

• Community awareness and appreciation of technologies in relation to nutrition

• Community awareness of the problem/issues/benefits

7. Access to support services along the value chain

• Strength of linkages among stakeholders in the value chain

• Market access

Pg. 29

• Competent and accessible extension services

• Advocacy & lobbying for financial, policy & institutional framework

8. Evidence-based data to support all aspects of intervention

• Being evidence or research based

5.2 Transforming success & failure factors into strategies and actions for improving nutrition, food security & livelihoods through community level PH&AP technologies

Participants studied the success and failure factors and identified the underlying issues in

terms of problems and opportunities; and proposed strategies and actions to be taken. These

strategies and actions would then translate into general principles on how to nutritionalise

Agriculture for resource constrained agricultural communities.

1. Defining and focusing on targets with clear strategies

Underlying issues/elements

• What is the current malnutrition rates in children, pregnant mothers etc.

• What are the prevalent deficiencies?

• What is the food security status

Strategies

• Multi-stakeholder approach and involvement

• Use of triangulation of methods to collect and analyse information

Activities

• Analysis of nutrition and food security data

• Participatory target setting

2. Understanding the socio-cultural context


• What are people in the targeted community dependent on?

• What are their household incomes?

• What are their livelihood resources and capabilities

• What are their constraints & barriers

• What are the societal institutional arrangements

• What are the social and power structures

• What are their food habits

• What are their value systems

• How are their role assigned (gender and age implications)

• What are their knowledge, attitudes & practices

Strategies

• Multi-stakeholder approach and involvement

• Use of triangulation of methods to collect and analyse information

Pg. 30

• Participatory planning, implementation, M&E

Activities

• Research baseline information

3. Suitability to agro-ecological context


• Productivity level sufficient for agro-processing

Strategies

• Participatory development of technology packages to optimize productivity

Activities

• Identify root cause of low productivity

• Risk assessment

• Determine the volume necessary for feasible production

• Determine the capacities of processors

• Identify suitable varieties and appropriate agronomic practices for optimal

productivity

• Hold meetings with stakeholders along identified value chain(s) to discuss

important qualities of produce (e.g. how it matures, lodges, dries, processes,

taste)

4. Characteristics of the intervention


• Compatibility with the local socio-cultural context

• Adaptability to the local context

• Complexity-ease of operation

• Labour intensiveness

• Affordability

• Participatory involvement in planning and implementation

• Magnitude of food and nutrition insecurity

• Magnitude of livelihoods security (ability to improve natural capital assets, the

physical, human, social and financial)

• Compatibility with Public-Private Partnerships

• Product stability

• Product quality, hygiene and safety along the value chain

• Improved product competitiveness

Strategies

• Participatory planning and intervention

• Participatory interrogation of the technologies in relation to the local socio-

cultural context

• Adopting and adapting successful technologies

Pg. 31

• Matching the interventions to local capacity and needs

• Engaging the PPP at the beginning

Activities

• Piloting

• Regular product analysis

• Designing and Keeping a technology inventory

5. Relevance of interventions to community needs


• Demographic characteristics of the household ( e.g. age )

• Stratification of households in the community

• Social and technological innovation situation

• Dietary needs of the households

• Inventory of locally available food

• Stakeholder involvement in the value chain

• Seasonal variations of foods in the community

• Entrepreneurial capacity of the group

• Level of utilization of different crop products

• Robustness and adaptability to diverse farming systems

• Affordability, availability, and suitability of the technologies

• Soil types

• Availability of superior genotypes/breeds

Strategies

• Integrated approaches that address multiple needs (Food security, nutrition and

livelihoods

• Interventions appropriate to diverse households in communities

• Integrating social and technological innovation within communities

• Meeting households’ nutrient need of different household members

• Meeting nutritional needs using available resources (diverse foods)

• Ensuring affordability, availability, and suitability of the technologies

• Promote robust technologies that are adaptable to diverse farming systems

• Ensure adequate agricultural produce quality and quantity to meet agro-

processing needs

• Build capacity of the group

• Promote benefits of multi cropping systems

• Promote use of inputs: Diversify crop utilization

• Matching target commodities to soil type

• Avail superior genotypes/breeds with accompanying tailored packages

• Support collective marketing

Activities

• Household demographic survey

• Baseline survey of social and technological innovations

• Nutrition survey of dietary needs of the households

Pg. 32

• Community crop census

• Secondary data on households’ nutrient need of different household members

• Identify nutrient intake gap in the household/community

• Dietary assessment

• Participatory technology introduction

• Focus group survey

• Nutritional profile; formulation; evaluation, refinement; tests the products

• Value chain analyses; Stakeholder analyses

• Focus group discussion on seasonal variations of foods in the community

• Early warning signals for seasonal variations of foods in the community,

• GIS mapping to prepare for lean seasons

• Stakeholders’ involvements and group formation

• Setting up associations/cooperatives

• Identifying sources of appropriate technologies

• Procuring equipment

• Recipes and product formulations

• Design and fabricate versatile and gender sensitive equipment

• Trainings/workshops

• Introduce/breed, test and adapt using participatory means

• Training (proper packaging, storage, transportation, harvesting)

• Facilitating group formation for better entrepreneurship

• Infrastructure development

• Human capacity building

• Soil analyses

• Soil amendments/nutrition

• Improve soil PH

6. Capacity Building of the Community

Underlying issues

• Entrepreneurial behavior/capacity of the community

• Capacity knowledge of the communities

• Knowledge, attitudes and practices of communities

• Community awareness and appreciation of technologies in relation to nutrition

• Community awareness of the problem/issues/benefits

Strategies

• Do gap and capacity analysis to see what the communities know and need in

nutrition, food security and livelihoods in the context of postharvest and agro-

processing

Activities

• Design an appropriate program for skills and capacity building in nutrition

knowledge, agro-processing, etc…

Pg. 33

• Identify appropriate sectors to undertake/deliver the training and capacity

development e.g. core nutrition, health, water and sanitation, social protection,

food preparation and formulation

• Monitor and evaluate the application of knowledge and capacity, attitudes and

practices in food and nutrition

• Map identifiable, related food and nutrition technologies using a set of criteria to

determine robust comparative advantages and viable technologies existing in the

community; considering current problems/issues and potential benefits

7. Access to support services along the entire value chain


• Financial support

• Extensions services

• Political will

• Infrastructural development

Strategies

• Lobbying & advocacy

• Copy role models

Activities

• Identify entrepreneurial behavior and capacity of individuals within the

community to become role models with leadership capacity

• Train and build entrepreneurial capacity of the selected community participants,

and basic financial literacy for the wider communities

o Develop a business plan to target the key links in the value chain to access

markets, taking into account: Product and process: Quality and quantity: Key

stakeholders : Market players

• Undertake incubation focused on food processing, especially for high nutritional

value foods

• Nutritional information and data (which is to be applied)

• Support the communities to access finance and sustained extension services as

well as lobbying for policy and institutional framework supports

o Food research results in product and process

8. Evidence-based data to support all aspects of intervention


• Presence of data to support your theory/ intervention

Strategies

• Establish database on proven post-harvest handling and processing technologies,

including nutrition information

Activities

• Inventory of available information-literature search

Pg. 34

• Identification of knowledge gaps and appropriate stakeholders to conduct

research to fill knowledge gaps

• Updating the data base

5.3 Constructing a Model for processing for improved nutrition, food security and livelihoods in

The various success/failure factors

of the various success factors that can

with a PH&AP lens. The model stresses the importance of:

(social, agro-ecological, political, etc.)

targets and objectives; understanding the technical and social options; doing

evidence while building capacity, providing support and comparing alternatives

the outcomes and assessing their relevance

proposed model for wider, effective and sustainable application of regionally adaptable post

harvest and agro-processing technologies and interventions for addressing food security,

livelihoods in the E/haf Region

along the cycle.

5.3.1 Generic Model

Option x Context Interaction - An integrating framework

Pg. 35

for application of post harvest handling and agroprocessing for improved nutrition, food security and livelihoods in EHAf

various success/failure factors were linked together to come up with a logical framework

the various success factors that can guide design and implementation of CCRP projects

with a PH&AP lens. The model stresses the importance of: understanding the contexts

ecological, political, etc.) of the target community and coming up with

tanding the technical and social options; doing R&D

capacity, providing support and comparing alternatives

the outcomes and assessing their relevance to the community and case under R&D

ider, effective and sustainable application of regionally adaptable post

processing technologies and interventions for addressing food security,

livelihoods in the E/haf Region is iterative and allows for lesson learning and improvement

An integrating framework

application of post harvest handling and agro-EHAf

up with a logical framework

guide design and implementation of CCRP projects

understanding the contexts

and coming up with clear

R&D based on

capacity, providing support and comparing alternatives; evaluating

to the community and case under R&D. The

ider, effective and sustainable application of regionally adaptable post-

processing technologies and interventions for addressing food security,

is iterative and allows for lesson learning and improvement

Pg. 36

5.3.2 Application of developed model

The model provides an opportunity for research and development projects in agro-processing and

post-harvest technologies for food security, nutrition & livelihoods to identify key elements and

strategies/actions that would ensure achievement of set targets.

STEP 1a DEFINING POTENTIAL TARGETS

The targets for the agro-processing and post-harvest technologies for food security, nutrition &

livelihoods include:

• Improving nutrient content – higher protein, micronutrients

o E.g. specific target: Nutrition U1000

• Ensuring food safety

o Bacteria, fungi, abiotic contaminants (metals, muck)

o Mycotoxin

• Reducing post-harvest losses

o E.g. specific target - pests, processing losses, spoilage during handling and

storage

• Smoothing availability

o Addressing seasonal deficits: what is missing, when?

o Processing and storage

o Managing price fluctuations, diversifying

• Reducing drudgery

o Threshing grain amaranth

o Decorticating sorghum

o Chopping cassava

• Improving income in rural households

o Market access

o Household, commercial, enterprises

o How: Linking stakeholders may have corollary benefits

o Improve child feeding (Convenience is important)

** Negotiate the targets with community!!

Mechanisms / techniques

Drying; Malting; Fermentation; Grinding; Blending; Frying; Pickling; Smoking;

Drying/salting meats: Canning / jarring

Examples of products

Composite flours; Complementary weaning foods; Snacks for kids; Jams; Crackies; Salami;

Biltong; omuranda

Pg. 37

STEP 1b DESCRIBING THE DESIRED FOOD SECURITY, NUTRITION & LIVELIHOOD IMPROVEMENT OUTCOMES WHAT WE WANT TO ACHIEVE

STEP 2 UNDERSTANDING THE CONTEXT 1- WHERE WILL WE LOCATE OUR PILOT

STEP 3a UNDERSTANDING THE BIOPHYSICAL CONTEXT - WHAT DO WE NEED TO KNOW?

• What can grow?

• What can provide the needed nutrients?

• Is there a mycotoxin problem? Participatory assessment using VICAM gadget

o What crops?

o What toxins?

o How bad?

o Can sorting help?

Pg. 38

STEP 3b SOCIO-CULTURAL CONTEXT: WHAT DO WE NEED TO KNOW?

• What is the extent of malnutrition?

• What types of households exist, and what challenges does each face?

• Social capital:

o Ethnic issues

o Gender issues

Participatory technology development

Why?

• Ownership

• Getting it right

• How?

STEP 4 GETTING THE OPTIONS

Technical options: What tools can help?

• Drying

• Improved storage to reduce losses and mycotoxins

• Fortification:

o Local blending

o Additives from elsewhere

• Baby food (complementary weaning foods)

• Participatory review of options and potential bundling thereof

Social Options

Strategy for effecting change

Learning by doing: what do people need to know and how can they learn?

• Towards hygiene (food safety)

o Teaching about microbes –

o Culture your groundnuts and see those beautiful fungi flourishing! Feed to a

chick and watch them die

o Petri-dish experiments: handprints, human hair; boiled vs. unboiled water

• Recipe days – Lizzie Shumba

o Get men into their chef hats

Pg. 39

• Participatory video to spread local ideas

o Flip video, smart phone videos

STEP 5 IMPLEMENTATION: MATCHING SOCIAL & TECH INNOVATION

Why entrepreneurship?

• Farming is a business

• Farming needs markets, value addition

• People need jobs

• Management matters

• Specialization helps

• Training and support are needed

• Business model is important

o Bundling to reach critical viability threshold

o Drying + milling + fortifying + packaging

o Multiple major and minor crops handled with multi-tasking machines

o Good handling of small seeded crops

o Way of incrementally improving techniques

o Way of fixing machines

Questions about current state of entrepreneurship

• Who is involved in local food industry?

• What are they doing?

• What are their strengths?

• What are their bottlenecks?

• What is the potential for commercialization of foods that are not currently being

commercialized?

Pg. 40

o What components are best commercialized versus done at household level?

o Bigger machines: private, cooperative group ownership, local business

o Consider and compare alternatives

• What is local purchasing power and how is it distributed?

• Incentives and practices for food safety

o If not, how to manage?

• Accessing capital

o Jump-starting the system

o How to generate own capital

o Sustainable profitability and growth

• Skills for managing enterprise

o Baseline status? Biz plan

o How to strengthen

STEP 6 HOW ARE WE DOING? M&E

Pg. 41

6.0. REFINING CCRP PROJECTS USING THE GENERIC MODEL

The CCRP research teams reviewed their projects using the generic model and identified key elements

at each of the various stages of the model that needed refocusing and emphasis.

6.1 Chickpea/Cowpea

The project goal is improved household nutrition through increased production and consumption of

quality Chickpea/Cowpea in South Western Uganda.

Understanding prevailing food security conditions

1. What are the dietary diversity and household consumption behavior and pattern?

2. What are the prevailing nutrition situations of the household members?

3. What are the types of crops that are grown in the farming system?

4. What are the incomes sources of the farm families?

5. Food cultural values

Identification of PH and processing intervention compatible with existing agro-ecological ad social settings

1. Improvement in processing operations and storage facilities

2. Improving value addition for a stable food and quality product

3. Establishment of producers association

Implementation of appropriate food PH and Processing interventions

1. Capacity building

• Nutrition education on chickpea consumption and utilization

• Participatory Training on nutrition and agronomic aspects that affect PH

• Safe post-harvest and processing practices

• Product development and value addition processes

• Group dynamics and entrepreneurial skill development

2. Provide support

• Provision of processing equipment on a zero interest loan

• Linkages and networking among farmers, health institutions and others intervention organizations in

the area

• Provision of agricultural Inputs (improved seeds, tarpaulins), Dissemination materials

• Mentorship through frequent visit

• Provide supports to improve existing infrastructure (storage, drying, processing)

• Logistics

3. Compare alternatives

• Compare existing interventions in other legumes

• Nutritional benefits against other legumes and cereals

Evaluate food security, nutrition and livelihood gains

1. Household food basket inventory (is chickpea among the diet)

• How much food is produced, sold, used for feed, kept as seed

2. Nutrition status assessment among the target (anthropometric)

3. Community Sensory evaluation of the chickpea product (Hedonic) (best alternative)

4. Nutritional evaluation of the product (proximate analyses)

Pg. 42

Assess progress towards FSNL objectives relevance

1. Develop an M & E strategy

• How much acreage is under chickpea production

• What are the consumption patterns of chick pea

• How much chickpea is real consumed (consumption data)

Prevailing social, institutional, agro-ecological conditions

1. What are social values among the target groups?

2. What are the social and power structures in the community and within individual households?

3. What are the different roles for the different communities and household members?

4. What are the opportunities and barriers to acceptance or rejection of a new intervention? Political

interferences????

5. What are the climatic conditions within the targeted communities?

6.2 Tef and Grain amaranth

Describe desired nutrition, food security and livelihood improvement outcome

• Improved dietary nutrient intake of children and mothers (women of reproductive age) in

specific regions among resource constrained communities

• Improved livelihoods of resource constrained farmers

• Reduced quantitative and qualitative losses associated with post-harvest processing of teff and

grain amaranth

• Reduced labor, time, and drudgery associated with post-harvest handling and processing.

Understanding prevailing food security, nutrition and livelihoods condition

• Analysis of baseline, needs assessment, food security assessment etc. data collected

• Review existing information i.e. research reports

• Determine causal agents/critical drivers (Prioritization of constraints or challenges)

• Triangulation of priorities with communities

Implementation of appropriate food postharvest and processing interventions

Capacity building

• Training and demonstrating to communities on use of post harvest handling and value addition

technologies (Including TOTs to enhance diffusion of knowledge and skills)

• Training fabricators for post harvest handling and processing equipment

• Training of community target groups on nutrition and food safety

• Develop social mechanisms for sharing/leasing machines and increasing access for resource

limited farmers (including increasing credit access for renters if that is part of the mechanism)

• Introduce or develop technologies for post-harvest handling of byproducts (such as bailers for tef

or amaranth chaff)

Product development

• Develop diversity of recipes from less utilized tef varieties for household level utilization and

other markets

• Promote diversifying of products from grain amaranth in order to increase consumption in areas

where they are not frequently consumed

• Develop value-added products to increase farmer incomes

Pg. 43

Identification of food postharvest and processing intervention compatible with existing agro

ecological and social settings

• Participatory evaluation of post-harvest technologies

• Identify, evaluate, improve and demonstrate technologies associated with threshing, cleaning,

and milling (including integrated and multi-crop technologies)

Evaluation of food security, nutrition and livelihood gains (Impact assessment)

Technology adoption at community level

• Number of communities/ families that have adopted production, post harvest handling and

processing technology

Conduct nutrition assessment surveys

• Improvement in dietary nutrient intake

• Improvement in anthropometric measures of women and children

• Reduction in diet related diseases diarrhea

Improvement in livelihoods

• Increase in households assets

• Increased access to medical care and education

Assess progress towards food security and nutrition objectives relevance

• Monthly and Midterm monitoring and evaluation

• Review National Bureau of Statistics reports

Provide support

• Create linkages with diverse stakeholders along the value chains

• Lobby and advocate for community level infrastructure development

6.3 Sorghum/millet project

Number 5: implementation of appropriate food postharvest and processing interventions

What we want to

achieve

How it will be achieved Bottlenecks

Provision of

consistent quality

grain by farmers for

home utilization and

for the market

• Good post- harvest handling practices through the

Post- harvest value chain (harvesting,

fermentation(EA), drying, threshing, winnowing,

cleaning, storing, (EA)

• Training of farmer trainers and rural women

associations by the researchers (food safety and

hygiene, storage, etc)

• Farmers to disseminate the good practices

• Testing for mycotoxins and other contaminants

• Testing for anti-nutritional factors

• Physico-chemical analysis of improved varieties

by scientists

• Monitoring and evaluation by the research team

• Labour intensive

thus need for

mechanical

threshers; cleaning

and drying facilities.

• Possible

contamination by

mycotoxins, sand

and stones

• Possible presence of

anti-nutritional

factors (tannins,

phytates, etc)

Pg. 44

• Developing incubation centres

• Sourcing and acquisition of appropriate

equipment for labour saving and rural incubation

centres.

• Inappropriate

storage

Value addition

through processing

• Mechanization of processes ( decortication,

roasting, sorting, mixing, cleaning, pasting,

popping, fermentation, pounding, sieving, milling

extrusion, agglomeration, packaging,)-

• Stakeholders will help in the acquisition of

mechanical technologies required (development

partners, Processors, NGOs, Equipment fabricators,

scientists, economists, etc)

• Build capacity for entrepreneurs and local

community associations/women’s groups at

incubation centres.

• Food safety and hygiene

• Possible

contamination by

metal (steel)

microorganism,

stone etc.

Participatory

diversified product

development

• Inventory of available community products

(baseline market survey) by farmers, consumers

and scientists

• Recipe formulation and product development

• Product sensory evaluation by community

• Product modification

• Community product verification

• Product nutrient analysis

• Monitoring and evaluation

Community food

product

dissemination

• Nutrition education and promotion

• Participatory preparation of raw materials

• Community demonstration and skills hands-on

processing

• Simple product packaging

• Costing

Community capacity

building in

marketing

• Grain contracting

• Food safety and hygiene

Pg. 45

6.4 Enset Project

Livelihood

• Enset: -20 million people depend on it

− Resilient

− Drought resistant

− It can grow throughout the year

− It can grow on marginal land

− Productivity per unit area is high

− Low Production cost

− Environmental friendly

• It is a perennial crop and it can multiply fast

• Residue for animal feed

• Products like crafts, baskets, hats and mats

• Pre and post-harvest operation involves women and children

• Not commercially produced- homestead crop

• High calorie plant

• Feeding habits of the community: Kocho, Bulla and Amicho mixed with common bean

• Malnutrition is prevalent in Ethiopia

• Mixed crop- livestock farming systems, with enset, maize, cattle and small ruminants

• The women sell (Kocho& Bulla) to the market. Quality of Kocho and Bulla reflects in price

difference.

• Bulla is an indicator of wealth (Social status is high, reflected by eating Bulla)

• There is high urban market for the products. A kilogram of Bulla sells for 20 Birr (approximately

1$)

• The shelf-life needs to be maintained. It keeps for approximately one month after taking out from

the underground fermentation pit.

Challenges

• The crop is highly affected by field pests and diseases

• Prevalence of Protein and Vitamin A malnutrition within the communities

• Poor hygiene and sanitation practices is characteristic of the traditional processing of Enset

• Manual, tedious nature of the postharvest handling practices for Enset

• Inadequate / unavailable / inappropriate postharvest handling equipments, squeezer,

pulverizer, solar dryers and mills (Hammer mills)

Interventions

Hypothesis: If the problem of Enset Bacterial Wilt is solved, productivity is likely to increase.

Accordingly, the postharvest problem will aggravate.

Implementation

a) Participatory Needs Assessment

• Understanding trading of postharvest process / operations

• Identify technical and capacity gaps

• Examine major determinants of adoption

Pg. 46

• Promising / Potential Interventions

b) Awareness Creation and Participatory Planning Meeting (s)

• Nutrition / Nutrition Education Programme

• Hygienic condition of the products

• Potential Post-harvest Equipment for testing and adaptation

• The Financial Feasibility of proposed interventions

• Sustainability / Ownership aspects

• Action Plan

c) Improving post-harvest handling and management practices

• Searching, Testing and Adapting the identified Technologies

• Technical and Financial Evaluation / Analysis of interventions,

• Field Days, Demonstration, and Training (ToT): Local Fabricators, Development Agents,

Farmers, etc.

d) Improving Nutrition in Target Communities

• Fortification: Enrich Bulla, Kocho and Amicho with grain legumes such as Common/ Climbing

Beans, Soyabean, etc. and with pumpkin or orange fleshed-sweet potato

• Nutrition education : Understanding the concept of nutrition

• Product Development, sensory evaluation and monitoring

e) Monitoring and Evaluation/Impact assessment

Pg. 47

7.0. GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Pitfalls of agro-processing

• Environmental impacts of packaging

• Promoting unhealthy foods / eating habits

• Loss of food culture -kids get taste for exotic foods

• Increased food sales at expense of farmer household consumption

• Additives that are not health promoting -sugar, preservatives, salt, fat, colorants

*Alcohol - do we want to promote it?

Plenary discussion

CCRP teams were advised to use the generic model to revisit their projects with a view of incorporating

new ideas which can fit within their current budget. For completely new but novel plans, CCRP teams

were advised to present them at the next CoP so that they can probably be funded through Technical

Assistance grants.

Pg. 48

8.0 CLOSING

8.1 Next Steps

The following were agreed upon as the next action points and responsible persons:-

What When Who? Workshop report 12thApril 2013 Ahmed& Maria

Work plan adjustments Before 6th May 13 All CCRP projects

Call for Concept Notes 6th April 13 Linnet

Circulation of workshop synthesis report to all participants 30th Apr 13 John

Requests for literature – Mendeley Projects

8.2 Workshop Evaluation and Closure

Participants around their table groups discussed and agreed on the following as a way of workshop

evaluation.

a) What they liked most about the workshop was...

∗ The active participation and interactive discussions.

∗ Good time management.

∗ Interaction and sharing experiences.

∗ Wealth and diversity of information shared.

b) What they didn’t like was ….

∗ Closing daily sessions late.

∗ Lake flies.

∗ Fried salty sugary oily foods!

∗ No trip to Kampala.

c) Looking at the application of the agro-processing and post harvest handling concept for Food

Security, Nutrition and Livelihoods the positive things participants see are ……

∗ Focused CCRP projects

∗ Changes in approach and thinking of funding agencies to realize that agro-processing and post

harvest handling technologies can significantly contribute to Food Security, Nutrition and

Livelihoods.

∗ Employing holistic approach and making the CCRP interventions complete.

∗ Agro processing and post-harvest handling is gaining momentum.

∗ Opportunities to bring together different aspects of post-harvest and agro processing which

have for long been separate.

d) Things that worried participants as they left this meeting were…

∗ Competition for exploratory grants.

∗ The implications of the new ‘model’ approach considering the target communities.

∗ Failure to incorporate new aspects in the CCRP projects given time and cost limitations.

∗ Going back and doing nothing as many times good ideas usually die with workshop.

Pg. 49

8.3 Closing Remarks

The facilitator, Maria, thanked all participants for the active participation. She thanked the organisers

for selecting her to facilitate the meeting and noted that she had learnt a lot from the meeting. She

expressed her fears of failure to make follow-up on what had been said and called on the organizers to

make sure that the various issues agreed upon are taken up seriously. She thanked the steering

committee for the support and guidance to ensure a good product. She also thanked the logistical team

for their tirelessly efforts to provide a conducive environment for all participants.

The convener, Prof. John Muyonga thanked all participation for the active engagement and noted that

this was a unique group which passionately brought out issues. He thanked the logistics team for the

support. He also thanked the MF Regional Team for the support and the contributions during the

meeting. He noted that post-harvest is slowly sneaking into CCRP work and hoped that it will

gradually become a major component. John wished all participants safe journeys back home and called

upon them to continue networking beyond the meeting for mutual benefit.

Rebecca on behalf of MF and the Regional Team thanked John for the wonderful organisation. She

expressed her gratitude to the non CCRP grantees for their expertise contribution to the meeting

discussion. She thanked Bibi Giyose, a member of the MF Advisory committee for her contributions.

She also thanked MF for the financial support to organise the meeting. She thanked Linnet for the

continued guidance to E/HAf CoP. She was opportunistic that incorporating post-harvest into CCRP

work will deliver benefits. She appreciated the experiences and lessons shared. Lastly she thanked the

facilitators, Ahmed and Maria, for guiding and documenting the meeting; and the logistics team for the

support during the meeting.

Pg. 50

ANNEXES

Annex 1: List of Participants and Facilitators

No. Participant's Name Institution E-mail Address

1. Charles Muyanja Makerere University, P. O. Box 7062 Kampala [email protected]

2. John Bosco Muhumuza Mbarara Zonal Agriculture Research & Development Institute, Box

389 Mbarara, Uganda

[email protected]

3. David Kalule National Semi-Arid Resources Research Institute /NARO, Soroti,

Uganda

[email protected]

4. John Muyonga School of Food Technology, Nutrition & Bio-Engineering, Makerere

University

[email protected]

5. Julius Wambete Department of Food Technology & Nutrition, Makerere University [email protected]

6. Zeritu Shashego Hawassa Agricultural Research Centre, Box 6 Hawassa, Ethiopia [email protected]

7. Laike Kebede Melkassa Agricultural Research Centre. Box 436, Nazareth, Ethiopia [email protected]

8. Violet Mugalavai Chepkoilel University College (Moi University) Box 1125-30100

Eldoret, Kenya

[email protected]

9. Rhoda Nungo Kenya Agricultural Research Institute(KARI) Box 169-50100

Kakamega, Kenya

[email protected]

10. Agnes Atyang Decision Support Systems [email protected]

11. Lizzie Shumba Ekwendeni Hospital Box 19 Ekwendeni, Malawi [email protected]

12. Oudoguem Bareye, CoordinateurAn Be Jigi, HKI-Mali [email protected]

13. Moustapha Moussa BP 429 INRAN, Niamey, Niger [email protected]

14. Rose Tinka Kamuli

15. Peter Atekyereza Makerere University [email protected]

16. Nelson Rebecca CCRP Scientific Director& CCRP- E/Haf Liaison Scientist [email protected]

17. Linnet Gohole CCRP-E/Haf Regional Representative Box 1125-30100,Eldoret,

Kenya

[email protected]

18. Tesfahun Fenta CCRP-E/Haf – Ethiopia Support [email protected]

19. Margaret Kemigisa CCRP-E/Haf – IMEP Support [email protected]

20. Yusuf Byaruhanga Makerere University [email protected]

21. Alastair Hicks Mae FahLuang University, Thailand [email protected]

22. Archileo Kaaya Makerere University [email protected]

23. Roselline Nyamutale Sasakawa Africa Association [email protected]

24. William Ekere Makerere University [email protected]

25. Ruelle Morgan Cornell University [email protected]

26. Bibi Giyose CCRP AC Member [email protected]

27. Richard Coe CCRP Regional Team [email protected]

28. James Murangira Sasakawa Africa Association [email protected]

29. William Ssali UNBS/Private Consultant [email protected]

30. Dorothy Nakimbugwe Makerere University [email protected]

31. Solomon Seruwo VEDCO, Uganda [email protected]

32. Florence Kyazze Makerere University [email protected]

33. Ahmed Zziwa Picoteam- Uganda [email protected]

34. Maria Nassuna-Musoke Picoteam - Uganda [email protected]

35. Brian Andabati Makerere University [email protected]

36. Catherine Ndagire Makerere University [email protected]

37. Erastus Kibuga Technoserve Ekibuguetns.org

38. Peter Abong MAAIF [email protected]

39. Issa Kamala Family Diet Ltd [email protected]

Pg. 51

Annex 2: Summary of Workshop Program

Wed: 3rd Apr 2013 Thurs: 4th Apr 2013 Frid: 4th Apr 2013

∗ Registration

∗ Introduction

∗ Setting the scene

∗ Remarks from RT

∗ Background and

Workshop objectives

∗ Sharing postharvest and

agro processing

experiences

∗ Discussions

∗ Recap of Day 1

∗ Presentation of Day 1

output

∗ Identification of success

and failure factors for a

strategy

∗ Unpacking the cornerstones

∗ Defining criteria for a new

& innovative intervention

∗ Recap of day 2

∗ Identification of a new & innovative

interventions

∗ Modalities for the intervention

∗ Agreeing on milestones for adjusting

the work plans to address gaps

∗ Receiving information on the

upcoming call from MF

∗ Next steps

∗ Evaluation & closure

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