02-26-2025, 05:08 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-10-2025, 10:32 AM by bragamiguel.)
IUFoST/Association of African Universities (AAU) Scientific Roundtable Discussion (SRD) on:
"Advancing Food Processing in Africa: Challenges, Innovations and Opportunities".
Overview
Food processing is a critical sector for Africa's economic growth, food security, and sustainable development. As the continent continues to face challenges such as post-harvest losses, limited infrastructure, and inadequate access to modern technologies, there is an urgent need to harness innovations and leverage emerging opportunities.
This webinar aims to provide a platform for stakeholders across the food value chain to discuss pressing issues, share success stories, and explore strategies to drive progress. By addressing these challenges and unlocking potential in areas such as agro-processing, value addition, and digital transformation, the webinar seeks to contribute to building a resilient and competitive food processing sector in Africa.
This Forum is to encourage questions/comments/responses to the Roundtable and the challenges/innovations/opportunities around advancing food processing in Arica. The questions/comments here have been asked/noted by the attendees to this impactful and widely attended Roundtable held earlier this year. To view the Roundtable video and reference speakers and their profiles, visit: https://iufost.org/advancing-food-processing-africa-challenges-innovations-and-opportunities.
Questions, comments are listed by number. Questions are being responded to by the Roundtable experts and experts within the AAU and IUFoST. Please feel free to contribute to this Forum and engage in this discussion and work with us to find the solutions.
Question and comments
1. Thank you, Prof. Charles A, for that great introduction. The idea of scaling the traditional food processing methods. The question continues to be one of safety...
2. Very wonderful Presentation Prof. Olusula.
3. Thank you for a wonderful presentation and valuable materials Prof. Olusula, O.
4. Thank you, Prof. Oyewole. for the great presentation. The idea of scaling up the traditional food processing in Africa is indeed wonderful. Yet within our local communities the communication on the advances in technology is still scarce. What are the mechanisms that can be proposed and implemented to get more smallholder farmers informed and aware so that their production increase as well as their profit?
5. I am In Italy, University of Bologna, originally from Ethiopia, and working on emerging technology to improve the functionality of traditional and underutilized products. Any opportunities to work together is welcome.
6. In scaling up a traditional technology, how are IP issues (if any) handled?
7. Thank you, Profs and the presenters, you gave us informative presentation. The Issues we need to address is, how do get the technology at the lab or at the community to higher level so that we could contribute to a better food system Around Africa. We say that the academic and research institutes need to link with the food industries, and other actors, but how? what is the problem having difficulties to link those actors and improve the food processing sectors?
8. I) Fresh agricultural products such as fruits and vegetables are very susceptible to loss due to their high perishability. In Africa, we are encountering a big loss in this food category due to lack of proper storage technologies such as refrigeration. More attention should be also directed towards the way of addressing losses in perishable products by promoting more research on refrigeration systems and how they can be used cost-effectively to lengthen the shelf-life of fresh goods. Thank you very much.
ii) The Final product which is safe must reach the unreachable and to the Poor and must be sustainable harvest after harvest.
iii) The use of less energy and water and less resources including packaging must be kept in mind
iv) Science can advance but food preservation by simple methods of processing which also imbibes high science in developing countries in Africa according to my experience has huge potential and IUFoST along with AAU must play a huge role in the advancement.
v) It needs to be affordable, appropriate, adaptable and acceptable game changes of food processing so that food is not lost or wasted.
vi) Lastly agriculture must be well understood in the region by those who recommend high-cost processing techniques for export purposes as the weather, soil, and rain pattern will decide which crops are healthily grown and which cannot be grown. New crops introduction must be carefully evaluated as the hundreds of years of food culture will not get lost and symbioses of gut microbiota with the soil microbiota is important to understand for health and wellness. - Vish Prakash
9. The use of Technological Incubation Centre can help in scaling up our Traditional Food Processing methods, but why is it that the government is not adopting this approach to help small scale food processors to meet regulatory agency requirements?
10. Thank you, Prof. Oyewole for your presentation.
As mentioned, traditional food processing contributes not just to nutrition and availability, it also contributes to community life, keeping the locals in business. My question is: how is scaling up likely to affect community life and local businesses?
11. I would be glad to hear your views on the role of hydroponics in the food industry especially in the African Context.
12. Please, is there a deadline to submit concept notes, abstracts, ...etc.
13. To Dr Kongongo - The communal use of the dryer - how was it maintained and controlled? - that is the sustainability of the intervention
14. Great point Mr. Kongongo! Smallholder farmers are most of the time underestimated in Africa, yet they are at the root of an efficient supply chain. They must indeed receive more support from advanced practioners and research institutions.
15. Challenges by Hydrogen cyanide, for example, have been known and posed for decades, however, detection methods seem to be non-disseminated unquestionably to the wider communities in rural Africa. Deaths and new provocations keep popping up in local newspapers in almost every African country every year. How can we solve such challenges safely in African food processing methods?
16. Great presentation by Prof Oyewole!
What is the role of Ministry of Agriculture in achieving the advancement of food processing. The food value chain starts from the farms which are under the control of Ministries of Agriculture. Going forward, more collaboration is required between the body of Food professionals in our countries and their respective Ministry of Agriculture.
17. Advancing food processing in Africa is also dependent on promoting strong linkages (involves building trust as well as quantity and quality of deliveries) between producers (farmers and traders) and processors and the markets to ensure timely off take from one segment of the value chain to the other.
18. In Africa, the sector involved in the practical advancement of food processing is the informal sector. However, the professionals hold the science and knowledge on best and safe approaches. I am wondering if AAU-IUFoST partnership plan to involve the informal sector in this kind of session, so they can listen firsthand to the valuable suggestions provided here.
19. Such a wonderful talk! Thank you for the presentation. May I know if I can have the slides of the presentations, please? Thank you so much
20. From my understanding, Africa faces a significant shortage of skilled manpower in the field of food engineering, coupled with inadequate infrastructure and a lack of strong institutions dedicated to food systems. Additionally, there is a scarcity of industrial-scale and laboratory-scale facilities to support food production and processing.
Given these challenges:
How can governmental policies effectively ensure food safety, incentivize local food production, develop necessary infrastructure for efficient supply chains, and foster value addition in the food system?
What measures should institutions and universities implement to cultivate skilled manpower capable of managing food processing and related sectors?
In addition, should that sensation continue, all our rural African food products remain a critical hazard to metropolitan areas and international markets.
21. Great presentation and content!
22. Many thanks to the Organisers and Presenters for this great educational package. Please can we get recordings of presentations?
23. Very timely presentation. Food processing, food hygiene, food safety, food packaging and food consumption is very vital to Agri sector.
Kindly send All presentation slides.
24. Hello everyone, please send all presentations
25. Prof. Eric Windhab, thank you for your advanced comprehensive scheme of transferability including palatability which was not included in Rimini.
26. Very happy to participate in the webinar!
27. What helps most with upgrading of traditional food most is availability of incubation centers. Efforts in this regard will solve array of problems.
Prof. Oyewole to make comment please.
28. May I request that the materials for this webinar be sent to our emails so we can digest them and see possibilities for implementation. Thanks
29. '@Prof. Erich, I really appreciate your innovative food impact correlation approach to sustainable food processing technology. I want to learn from you so that I can apply it to my future research.
30. So happy to attend this wonderful session. Just a note that African Food Research Network (www.afrenet.org) is happy to support initiatives of AAU-IUFoST in African communities. Thank you.
31. Thank you for the nice presentation and Discussion, it's transformative and impactful nowadays. Please can I get the presentation slides.
32. If I may make a comment that I have discussed with our illustrious chairman, Charles. Packaging has been mentioned as a component to preserve benefits of preservation and extend shelf life. A complicating factor is quality of roads that either promote or degrade that benefit. The World Bank program used to justify investment in roads did not include food loss, and including this could justify more road construction with same investment to improve distribution.
33. Great Presentation Prof. @Windhab. If I may ask, are the nutritional value calculations also valid for non-processed food such as those which are just kept in controlled storage facilities after harvest?
34. Thanks to the organisers. Please I need the recorded version.
35. Prof Windhab, in all these processing and formulation combinations, how does the issue of product 'shelf life' come in?
36. How can I be a member of IUFoST?
