3rd All Africa Horticultural Congress

7 – 12 August 2016. This Congress was hosted by the Nigerian Society for Horticultural Sciences and took place under the aegis of the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS).


The third AAHC follows the first and second held earlier in Kenya and South Africa, respectively. It is designed to cater to the diverse needs of the science, industry/business and capacity building sectors of the horticulture industry. There’s something for you during this congress whether you are a hobby horticulturist or a professional, so you cannot afford to miss it. Students are welcome too. It will feature symposia, an exhibition, field trips, brokerage of new business partnerships, a photo competition, and social events; all carefully put together to express the various perspectives of the theme ‘Horticulture for improved livelihoods’.

PAEPARD made a presentation related to the Importance of partnership platforms to meet the needs of horticultural enterprises: Lessons learned from international to national scales.

PROPAC attended the Side Event 3 organised by FAO on Urban Horticulture (see also below: related PAEPARD blog post)

Senegal will be hosting the 4th ALL AFRICA HORTICULTURE CONGRESS – 2020

Video coverage: 


Related PAEPARD blogpost: 
February 18, 2013FIRST STATUS REPORT ON URBAN AND PERI-URBAN HORTICULTURE IN AFRICA.
© FAO 2012, 116 pages.

This report draws the attention of policymakers to urban and peri-urban horticulture, and how it can help to grow greener cities in Africa. Production of fruit and vegetables in and around urban areas has a clear comparative advantage over rural and other sources in supplying urban residents with fresh, nutritious – but highly perishable – produce all year round. It generates local employment, reduces food transport costs and pollution, creates urban green belts, and recycles urban waste as a productive resource.

Related:
The Horticulture Innovation Lab is offering a grant up to $750,000 over three years to support a research project in integrated animal-horticulture systems. Sept. 19 is the deadline for brief concept notes, submitted by U.S. university researchers. Read the whole article about this 

The research should be focused on the needs of smallholder farmers in developing countries that are part of Feed the Future, with priority given to Cambodia, Nepal and Rwanda. Understanding the socioeconomic feasibility and trade-offs involved in mixed crop-livestock farming systems — ones that specifically incorporate fruit and vegetable crops — is the focus of this new call for concept notes. Read the whole article for additional details.

Additional OPPORTUNITIES:

  • DEVELOPMENT COMPETITION: OFF-GRID REFRIGERATION The Global LEAP Awards is seeking information and feedback to shape its upcoming Off-Grid Refrigeration Competition, which will begin in September: http://bit.ly/2b1cuoP
  • GRANT: DRIED APRICOTS HANDLING, MARKETING Sept. 12 is the deadline to apply for a $300,000 grant from the Horticulture Innovation Lab focused on the needs of growers in Burkina Faso: http://bit.ly/2b1dFVc
  • GRANT: TOMATO POSTHARVEST RESEARCH Sept. 12 is also the deadline for proposals from U.S. researchers focused on the needs of growers in Burkina Faso, for up to $300,000 from the Horticulture Innovation Lab: http://bit.ly/2aGF2lh
  • HORTICULTURE INNOVATION LAB 
  • University of California, Davis, with funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development as part of Feed the Future, the U.S. government’s global hunger and food security initiative.
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Invest in Innovative Agricultural Training in Africa

25 July 2016. RUFORUM Press Release. The MasterCard Foundation and the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) will collaborate to test new models of agricultural education in Africa. The eight year commitment of US$ 27.1 Million from MasterCard will focus on smallholder farmers, connecting university education to the needs of rural communities to meaningfully contribute to Africa’s growth and development. Gulu University (Uganda) and Egerton University (Kenya), both early adopters of the RUFORUM approach, will be the key implementers of the program.

This eight year project will support the training of 220 (110 undergraduate and 110 post graduate) economically disadvantaged students from across Africa. Students will benefit from leadership training to ensure that they become Africa’s next generation of agricultural leaders. The Program will further provide opportunities for transformative action research using the expanded RUFORUM Community Action Research Program (CARP+) to enhance university-led community impact. The CARP+ will include supplemental focus on Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions to enhance gains through greater collaboration and joint action between universities and TVET institutions. The Program will be scaled out through a series of competitive challenge programs and policy to other universities in Africa.

This funding supports RUFORUM’s broader objective to train the next generation of agricultural scientists within Africa. It also strengthens RUFORUM’s vision of achieving ‘a vibrant agricultural sector linked to African universities that can produce high-performing graduates and high-quality research, responsive to the demands of Africa’s farmers for innovations, and able to generate sustainable livelihoods and national economic development’. The partnership between RUFORUM and MasterCard Foundation will help fast track the achievement of this vision.

Click here to download full press release.

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Innovative Approaches to Process Local Food in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia

4 August 2016. The Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) funds research projects with innovative approaches in food processing of German agricultural and food research institutions with partners in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. BLE is the funding manager.

BMEL launched a call for proposals. The full title of the call is: “Innovative approaches to process local food in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, which contribute to improved nutrition, as well as qualitative and quantitative reduction of losses”. The German title is: “Innovative Ansätze zur Verarbeitung lokaler Lebensmittel in Subsahara-Afrika und Südostasien, die zu einer verbesserten Ernährung beitragen sowie qualitative und quantitative Verluste reduzieren”

  1. The call documents in German are the legally binding documents.
  2. Institutes outside of Germany are not eligible for DIRECT funding, thus non-German institutes cannot apply individually. But, German research institute(s) have to work closely together with institutes in the target region and are authorized to forward grants to their non-German partners. Therefore the German institute(s) will submit the short proposal as coordinator of international consortia.
  3. International Agricultural Research Centers (CGIAR) and the Association of International Research and Development Centers for Agriculture (AIRCA) are not eligible for funding.

Documents and Links

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Experience Sharing on ICT4Ag

28 June until 1 July 2016. Wageningen, the Netherlands.This CTA workshop was to help document the experiences across the seven activities for cross-border and cross-sectoral learning and exchange across ACP countries.

Five grants were awarded following a call in 2015 and the activities have been implemented between August 2015 and October 2015 in Antigua, Belize, Barbuda, Trinidad and Tobago, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Mali, and Sudan.

The granted organisations were:

  • eLEAF Competence Centre, a Netherlands-based high-tech company that uses reliable, quantitative data on water and vegetation coverage to support sustainable water use, increase food production and provide environmental protection systems, will be scaling up its satellite-based information services at the Gezira Irrigation Dam in Sudan to provide targeted delivery of extension services to farmers. Read more.
  • RONGEAD, a France-based international network system made up of NGOs, technical specialists, international institutions and businesses that provides market information services, will use the grant to improve its current initiative and scale it up through market analysis, training and capacity building, provision of information and advice and delivery of a business intelligence service to improve the competitiveness, profitability and ability of smallholder farmers to manage business risks in food chains in West Africa. Learn more.
  • Syecomp Business Services, a private-sector provider of geographic information system (GIS) services based in Ghana, will use its grant to develop a proof of concept and explore business models for the adoption of geospatial technology (GIS/global positioning system applications), dissemination of agro climatic information and mFarm actor-chain interactions in Ghana.Read more.
  • The University of West Indies, a public-sector research institute located in Trinidad and Tobago, will use its grant to extend and scale up an existing suite of web and mobile applications (mFisheries) for small-scale fisheries. It will also explore a novel co-management delivery model for ICTs amongst various agents in the small scale fisheries ecosystem in the Caribbean. Read more.
  • Yam Pukri, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) based in Burkina Faso, will use the grant to improve the monitoring and implementation of agricultural policies using ICTs, thereby empowering smallholder farmers to contribute to the agricultural and rural development policy processes. Read more.

In 2015, CTA followed up with a second activity that targets mobile applications in specific as a result of the ubiquitous nature of the mobile technology in almost every household, particularly in developing regions, such as Africa. Two mobile applications were chosen for this proof-of-concept activity:

  • Farmerline Ltd. Farmerline has a mobile-web based application that communicates timely and relevant agricultural information (such as weather alerts, best farm practices, financial tips, market prices and market access) to farmers. Its challenge lies in ensuring mobile app users are fully capable of using and benefiting from the functions of the app. Read more.
  • Ensibuuko. It is an early start-up technology enterprise that facilitates development solutions geared to increasing access to finance and information services to smallholder farmers. With its core banking and information platform, “Mobile Banking Information Systems” (MOBIS), Ensibuuko seeks to increase access and efficiency to financial services and information to both the rural financial institutions and farmers. Ensibuuko won the first ‘Hackathon’ organised by CTA during the ICT4Ag Conference 2013. Their main goal for the Apps4AgLO was to build capacity of target users to ensure successful adoption and use of MOBIS platform to improve agricultural productivity. Read more.
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