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
Representative: Marco Setti
marco.setti@unibo.it