
University of Leeds’ Global Food and Environment Institute (GFEI) collaborated with FoSTA-Health to organize the four-day event (March 11-15). Several members of the project team from Zambia, Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania, and Kenya travelled to Leeds to participate in the event. The programme included working sessions on the work on food safety, quality, and trade regulations in Southern Africa (Work Package 4); and working sessions on mapping of food systems (Work Package 6) in South Africa (participants included key project stakeholders from South Africa). More about the event in this blogpost.

Set up of the trials—in which intercropping maize with pigeon pea, groundnut, and soybean will be compared with maize-only cropping under different fertilization regimes—was completed in December 2023. Details in this blogpost

Multi-stakeholder consultations were successfully held in Zambia (Oct 4), Tanzania (Oct 11-12), South Africa (Oct 19), and Malawi (Oct 26). Close to a hundred stakeholders from varied backgrounds participated in the consultations and provided valuable inputs to our efforts to map food systems and build RTPs in the four countries. FoSTA-Health researchers also used the opportunity to present research plans and progress thus far, and received useful feedback.
Proceedings from the four events are documented in reports, compiled here.
Russell Cain (University of Leeds) and Abhigya (Czech Globe) have written blogposts reflecting upon insights from the consultations, with respect to RTPs and systems mapping respectively.

Horticulture is the fastest-growing agricultural sector in Tanzania, expanding by 9-12% annually and accounting for 38% of the total foreign income earned through agriculture. It employs over 4 million people. Beyond economics, horticulture has the potential to improve food security and nutrition levels in Tanzania, by diversifying the country’s cereal-heavy diet. By mapping out the avocado and orange supply chains in the northeastern Tanga region, this report offers a glimpse into the challenges faced by this growing sector and how they could potentially be overcome. Download report >>

In April-May 2023, the FoSTA-Health team carried out a scoping visit to Malawi and Zambia. Over a period of two weeks, thirty team members visited sites across both countries in which FoSTA-Health research will be focused. The locations visited included Chibombo and Mkushi Districts in Zambia’s Central Province and Mangochi and Zomba Districts in Malawi. The objectives of the trip were to engage stakeholders; gather background information about food systems and animal, human and environmental health challenges; and to refine research plans for the project. The visit involved meeting community members and District and Provincial officials; finding out more about recent trends in agricultural practice, land use, market engagement and diets; and learning about the work of the Titukulane programme led by CARE in Malawi.

A new €6.5 million project, funded by Horizon Europe and Innovate UK, will see colleagues from the Global Food and Environment Institute (GFEI) collaborate with partners across Africa and Europe over the next three and half years. The Food Systems Transformation in Southern Africa for One Health (FoSTA-Health) project will explore the consequences of emergent pathways of transformation in Southern African food systems, with a One Health focus.
The Malabo Declaration, which reaffirmed the key principles of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) places the transformation of agriculture and food systems at the centre of a range of national policy priorities and international development and research agendas across Africa. FoSTA Health is founded on the understanding that transformative change is needed in order to address food and nutrition insecurity and a variety of associated health challenges in Southern Africa. However, historically, transformative change in agriculture and food systems has exacerbated social inequalities. It is therefore essential that processes of visioning and governing transformation are inclusive and equitable; this is core to the mission of the project.
Read more: New research explores pathways of transformation in Southern African food systems

source: https://sustainablecz.org/2023/01/11/project-launch-food-systems-tranformation/
Just before Christmas, Julia Leventon and Lenka Sucha were excited to be in Pretoria, South Africa for the launch of the FoSTA Health project (Food Systems Transformation in Southern Africa for One Health). The project is exploring food systems transformations in Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi and South Africa, and works closely with academic and practice partners from all these countries, as well as the Netherlands and the UK. FoSTA-Health is funded by the European Commission and UKRI (insert grant agreement number).

Kulima is proud to be part of a new €6.5 million project, funded by Horizon Europe and Innovate UK, that started this week and will take place over the next 3.5 years. The Food Systems Transformation in Southern Africa for One Health (FoSTA-Health) project will explore the consequences of emergent pathways of transformation in Southern African food systems, with a One Health focus.
