FoodLAND was explicitly driven by transdisciplinary and holistic principles aimed to tackle nutrition, farming, and food processing issues in a coordinated way and will produce specific advancements on the state-of-the-art in different branches of knowledge including behavioural economics, plant breeding, agro-ecology, precision farming, horticulture, aquaculture, and food primary and secondary processing systems.
The achieved overall objective addressed three types of needs constraining the African food systems that identify the project expected results:
1. Organizational needs (i.e. inadequate coordination among food operators and scarce market orientation).
2. Technological needs (i.e. poor performances in local agro-food farming and processing systems).
3. Nutritional needs (i.e. unbalanced and unhealthy diets).
The achieved results generated an array of impacts including the following:
• Empowerment of local smallholder farmers and food operators (SMEs) in the network of 14 Food Hubs (implemented participative patterns, enhanced knowledge and skills) with special attention paid to gender equality.
• Enhanced coordination among producers along the local food supply chains and across countries (established network of Food Hubs).
• Reduction of the input use (herbicides, water, plastic materials, energy, …) and of the losses.
• Improvement of the environmental conditions (agri-ecological solutions, increased bio-diversity, valorisation of by-products and waste, ...) and progress toward low-carbon, climate-smart, and resilient food supply chains.
• Increase of the farming and food processing efficacy: augmented yields; increased product nutritional content; healthy and sensory properties, and shelf life; increased income and job opportunities.
• Boosted sustainability and food safety conditions across of the local food systems.
• Improved access to market opportunities and food operators’ socio-economic conditions.
• Contribution to healthy balanced African diets in 14 cities and 14 rural areas and to the reduction of malnutrition with focus on woman-child nutritional needs.
• Implementation of research structures and networks and reinforcement of collaboration between researchers.
• Contribution to policy decision-making processes for the benefit of the local smallholder farmers, food processors (SMEs), consumers, and civil society.
