Food and Nutrition Security and Sustainable Agriculture (FNSSA) and sister H2020 RIA project Synergy Summit

Bridging EU-Africa project partnerships to support agro-food system transformation

  • Data: dal 10 gennaio 2024 al 11 gennaio 2024

  • Luogo: Helsinki (Paasitorni Congress, Paasivuorenkatu 5A) and online on Zoom (il link verrà fornito al momento dell'iscrizione)

  • Modalità d'accesso: Ingresso gratuito con presentazione obbligatoria dell'invito

The FNSSA sister project Synergy Summit is an open event organised by the EU-Horizon 2020 projects InnoFoodAfrica, FoodLAND and HealthyFoodAfrica. As part of the EU-Africa partnership efforts, the Horizon 2020 programme funds the projects to encourage innovative initiatives to support food system transformation on the African continent. The projects focus on designing value chains to produce and distribute healthy foods from smallholder farms to local and export markets. They develop technology and other solutions combined with capacity building, communication and business understanding to improve farming practices, food choices, nutrition, food safety and to reduce food waste and loss.

Programme

Wednesday 10.1.2024 (only for the project members)

8.00 - 9.00 Registration

9.00 - 9.15 Introduction to seminar Raija Lantto - VTT, Finland

9.15 - 10.15 Session 1: Food innovations Chair: Emilia Nordlund - VTT, Finland

Potential and gaps of African crops as food ingredients and products for food and nutrition security in Sub Saharan Africa Naushad Emmambux - University of Pretoria, South Africa

Selected new, nutritionally rich legume lines Susan Nchimbi-Msolla Sokoine - University of Agriculture, Tanzania

Discussion

10.15 - 10.35 Break

10.35 - 13.00 Session 2: Nutrition and Consumers Chair: Mikael Fogelholm - University of Helsinki, Finland

Diets of women and children in African cities Kaleab Baye - Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia

Food consumption survey, focus on nutritional status and recommendations from FoodLAND Wambui Kogi-Makau - University of Nairobi, Kenya

Discussion

Consumer attitudes towards new nutrient-dense local food product Valentino Marini Govigli - University of Bologna, Italy

Consumer attitudes towards the new food product prototypes developed in InnoFoodAfrica Riette De Kock - University of Pretoria, South Africa / Paula Varela - Nofima, Norway

Stimulating consumer demand for sustainable healthy diets, a key step in food system transformation Consolata Musita, Alliance Bioversity & CIAT

Discussion

13.00 - 14.00 Lunch

14.00 - 15.25 Session 3: Empowering Food system actors Chair: Fred Stoddard - University of Helsinki, Finland

Enhancing the production of climate-smart local crops: Insights from the InnoFoodAfrica Farmer Participatory Research Ndegwa Maina - University of Helsinki, Finland

Empowering urban food system actors within food system labs of HealthyFoodAfrica Henk Renting - Aeres University of Applied Science, The Netherlands Rene van Veenhuizen - Hivos, The Netherlands

Multi-actor centres of innovation for food systems: the case of the food hub network in FoodLAND Elisa Carloni - University of Brescia, Italy

Discussion

15.25 - 15.40 Break

15.45 - 17.10 Session 4: Packaging innovations for sustainability and food safety Chair: Janne Keränen - VTT, Finland

Bio-based composite materials from crop side streams Yusuf Byaruhanga - Makerere University, Uganda

Packaging solutions for improvement of food safety in African food value chains Hanna Koivula, University of Helsinki, Finland

Bio-based packaging solutions for food products Santina Romani - University of Bologna, Italy

Discussion

17.15 - 17.20 Closing of the event Raija Lantto - VTT, Finland

Thursday 11.1.2024

Knowledge sharing and future prospectives

9:00 – 9:15 Introduction to the knowledge shearing Chair and moderator

Session 5

9:15 – 11:00 Open knowledge sharing platforms - how to make the innovations and exploitable results available to all Shakila Dada U Pretoria

9:15 – 9:30 Introduction to Africa innovation platform Ndegwa Maina U Helsinki

9:30 – 9:45 Introduction to FoodLAND open platform Manex Urruzola Arrate Elhuyar Aldizkaria

10:00 – 10:45 General discussion about possibilities, challenges for joining the platforms for better impact à message to the EU? Shakila Dada

10:45 – 11:00 Take home action points from the discussion

11:00 – 11:20 Break

Session 6

11:20 – 12:00 Success stories and lowlights retrospective and collaboration ideas Moderators: Shakila Dada

11:25 – 12:10 Facilitated discussion about sharing knowledge and experiences among project partners and ideating new collaboration topics

12:10 – 12:30 Sharing insights, agreeing next steps Raija Lantto, Mila Sell, Marco Setti

Referente: Marco Setti

marco.setti@unibo.it