Kenia - SolFOOD
Ecological, technological and capacity building strategies for a sustainable optimization of local maize-based food systems and climate-change resilient food production at the level of smallholder farmers in Kenya
The Project SolFOOD
Maize, as the most widely consumed staple food in sub-Saharan Africa, is frequently and highly contaminated with fungal mycotoxins such as aflatoxins, which regularly leads to fatal outbreaks of aflatoxicosis. Especially in Kenya, Africa, a region with high risk for aflatoxin contamination, the situation is worsening due to climatic changes. Heavily contaminated maize cannot be safely used for human and animal consumption, resulting in economic and nutritional losses. Local maize-based food systems at the level of smallholder farmers are in the focus of this proposal, because this group depends on their own food production. SoLFOOD will improve the maize production chain at small-holder level in Kenya, focussing on the reduction of food loss due to mycotoxin contamination and the development of alternative usage strategies for already contaminated maize, starting in the soil and ending up with the utilization and bio-detoxification of the harvested products for subsistence and commercial use.
Project Partners
- Eastern Africa Farmers Federation (EAFF), Kenya
- Kenya Agricultural & Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) Kenya
- Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT)
- University of Nairobi (UoN)
- PAEPARD
Implementing Organisation
Max Rubner-Institut Bundesforschungsinstitut für Ernährung und Lebensmittel, Karlsruhe
More information: SolFOOD
Address
Research Project SolFood
Eeastern Africa Farmers Federation
postbox 13747
00800 Nairobi
Kenia
