Acronym FoSeZA
Category
Seafood Processing
Title Food Security in Rural Zambia: Integrating Traditional Fruit and Vegetable Crops in Smallholder Agroforestry Systems Programme National Programme
Instrument (FP6)
Contact Type (FP7)
Strand (Interreg)
NA
Theme (FP7)
Activity Area (FP6)
Regional Area (Interreg)
Action (COST)
NA
Specific Programme (FP7)
NA
Funding source National Coordinator NA Coordinator email NA
Coordinator institution
IUW - Institute for Environmental Economics and World Trade (Germany)
Institutions involved
TUM - Technical University of Munich (Germany) ,
UNZA - University of Zambia (Zambia, Republic of) ,
ZARI - Zambian Agricultural Research Institute (Zambia, Republic of) ,
NA - Zambian Ministry of Agriculture (Zambia, Republic of) ,
NA - Zambian Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock (Zambia, Republic of) ,
NA - Zambian Ministry of Health (Zambia, Republic of) ,
Start year 2016 End year 2020 Funding (€) € 950,349 Website https://fisaonline.de/en/find-projects/details/?tx_fisaresearch_projects%5Bp_id%5D=11662&tx_fisaresearch_projects%5Baction%5D=projectDetails&tx_fisaresearch_projects%5Bcontroller%5D=Projects&cHash=16a09b11580bd4aae07f2af929b77b46 Summary The project addresses malnutrition in Luapula Province of Zambia and aims at developing sustainable diets well adapted to ecological conditions in wetlands of Congo Basin. Stunting is the most widespread nutritional disorder affecting children under five years, and Zambia’s national stunting rate of 45 % is high and exceeds the 40% average of sub-Saharan Africa (UNICEF 2013:8). According to Zambia Demographic and Health Survey, about 56% of children under-five in the Northern and Luapula Province are stunted. One of the main constraints identified by agriculture and nutrition officers include a wide spread deficiency in Zinc, Iron, and Vitamin A, and deficiency symptoms are highest among young women and children. Several factors explain observed malnutrition. First, the current food system doesn’t provide dietary diversity and people experience seasons of extreme food shortages. Second, as a consequence of intensive deforestation and wetland degradation in the Congo Basin, traditional food items of high nutritional value such as caterpillars and small pelagic fish are under pressure now. Finally gender inequalities and cultural habits contribute to food insecurity of women and children. We expect data on resource use, yields, morphological and physiological properties of traditional crop plants making them suitable fruit/vegetable associations under a range of environmental and agronomic conditions; selecting genotypes with high nutritional quality and improved resistance against local stressors and pathogens combined with a better storage and transport system is supposed to improve food security. Operational demonstration fields and gardens in combination with a set of gender-sensitive participatory learning tools will encourage the ownership and the adoption of the diversified agroforestry-based food system. Finally adaptive management practices will be developed to safeguard the maintenance of the implemented food system. The First step of the project’s working plan is the status quo analysis to identify and characterize chronic and transitory food insecure smallholders in the study region. This includes collection and desktop analysis of secondary data, mapping of target farming systems, mapping of different livelihood strategies, stakeholder analysis, and problem analysis related to the currently established food system and a market analysis. The second working step is the prospect analysis including identification of diversification possibilities for integrated smallholder cropping systems, fruit tree identification, and the assessment of the potential for integrating fish and edible insects into the present food system. The third step consists of the selection of field trials through participatory action research, such as real effort experiments, participatory planning, and selection of nutrition trials; followed by the Implementation of field trials that comprises the implementation of demonstration fields namely integrated cropping systems, tree nursery, extended fish pond systems and insect rearing. Fifth, the analysis of field research outcomes covers the analysis of the nutritional value of new farming systems, the general crop & ecological analysis, the socio-ecological analysis. Finally, the adoption analysis involves the scientific evaluation of field trials, the geographical integration analysis and assessment of the scaling-up potential, and the evaluation of nutrition trials. A second stream of project activities comprises student education and the development and conduction of capacity strengthening and training in the field.
Keywords
Land-based aquaculture;
Aquaculture development;
Protein source;
Fish;
Food safety;
Human food;
Marine Region
76
Not associated to marine areas
0
Marine Region Map
