NutriHAF-Africa project launched successfully
The NutriHAF-Africa project carried out its kick-off workshop in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from July 6-9, 2015. NutriHAF-Africa is a research and capacity building project that explores options to integrate appropriate fruit and vegetable crops into multi-storey cropping systems with the aim of increasing (micro-) nutrition security, diversifying and intensifying agriculture and thus reducing pressure on natural habitats in biodiversity hotspots.
The workshop participants were representatives of the project’s partners in Germany (<link http: www.zef.de>ZEF, <link http: www.globalhort.org>GlobalHort, <link http: www.ko-ga.eu>KoGa), Ethiopia (<link http: www.ecff.org.et>ECFF, Ethiopian Environment and Forest Research Institute (EEFRI)) and Madagascar (<link http: www.fofifa.mg>FOFIFA, <link http: www.univ-antananarivo.mg>University of Antananarivo, <link http: www.welthungerhilfe.de en home-en.html>Welthungerhilfe), as well as from regional organisations (<link http: www.asareca.org>ASARECA, <link http: fanrpan.org>FANRPAN) and international partners (<link http: avrdc.org>AVRDC, <link http: horticulture.ucdavis.edu>Horticulture Innovation Lab).
The workshop was opened with presentations by Ms. Laketch Mikael (<link http: www.ata.gov.et>Agricultural Transformation Agency), Mr. Samuel Bwalya (<link http: www.et.undp.org>United Nations Development Programme) and Dr. Mohamad Yesuf (Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research). Representatives of the World Agroforestry Centre and GIZ were also attending the workshop.
During the workshop, the participants had the opportunity to develop a detailed work plan for the first six months of the project and to outline the activities and responsibilities for the entire project time span. Criteria for selecting research sites and for benchmarking were also developed. Being a trans- and interdisciplinary project, internal communication and exchange were identified as key elements of success.
Ten postdoctoral fellows at ZEF, GlobalHort, KoGa, EECF, EEFRI, ASARECA, FANRPAN and FOFIFA together with 54 MSc students will carry out the project in Ethiopia and Madagascar during the next three years.
