FruVaSe - News

4th FruVaSe Hybrid-Workshop from 27th to 29th April 2022 in Nairobi, Kenya and via Zoom

Due to the improved Corona situation, the final FruVaSe meeting could be held this year as a hybrid workshop in Nairobi, Kenya. In addition to the FruVaSe team and the associated PhD and MSc students, farmers from the research districts Taita Taveta and Kitui in Kenya participated on the first day of the meeting via Zoom and gave valuable feedback to the project activities.

Through presentations of the different work packages, latest results were shared and future research questions and priority policy recommendations were discussed in groups. Furthermore, first results of the dissemination work were presented.

On the second day, the workshop also included a visit to the "University of Nairobi Innovation Week Exhibition" on the university campus. Here, the guava nectar with Moringa extract, developed by Duke Gekonge, PhD student within the FruVaSe project, was exhibited and awarded with a prize.

PhD student Duke Gekonge (second from the right) at his stall displaying guava products, together with his supervisor Dr. George Abong (left) and FruVaSe colleagues from Tanzania, Dr. Neema Kassim and Dr. Edna Makule (from the left).

Highlights of the presentations and discussions:
  • All FruVaSe fruit products are very promising and all make use of surplus fruits that otherwise rot in the field/ are lost for consumption; yet, fruits are mostly consumed fresh – strong marketing is required for new processed products.
  • Vegetable products retain important micronutrients, most are shelf-stable for at least 6 months and are acceptable by consumers.
  • Major challenges and limitations in fruit and vegetable processing
    • No high quality seeds/ seedlings available – genebanks need to extend to fruits and vegetables
    • No local biodegradable packaging material available, only few recycling systems for packaging – sustainable packaging solutions are needed
  • Future research questions for both fruit and vegetable (FV) processing include
    • to identify the synergies between technologies that can be used for the production of multiple foods so that equipment can be used throughout the year with different FVs being available during different seasons;
    • cost-benefit-analysis with more reliable data and optimisation of the costs for the whole processing process;
    • adapt technologies to local conditions at village level.
  • Policy recommendations include
    • tax relief for those who are engaged in processing of fruits and vegetables;
    • sensitise consumers as they will otherwise not adopt these partly new products;
    • allocate cheap credits for FV production, processing (equipment) and to provide (sustainable) energy, re-classification of processed foods;
    • organise water and energy issues at community levels – not at household levels.
  • Plan for the remaining time of the FruVaSe project
    • Establishment of a Fruit and Vegetable Processing (FVP) online platform
    • Joint publications
    • Commercial proof of concept of selected FruVaSe products (UoN, Kenya); incubation workshop at NM-AIST, Tanzania; knowledge exchange and knowledge dissemination (MUG, Uganda)
FruVaSe project team and guests during the first day of the 4th FruVaSe workshop.

 
Impressions from the "University of Nairobi Innovation Week Exhibition" where FruVaSe products were displayed.



Special prize at the trafo:agrar competition

Our PhD student, Ms Johanna Tepe, University of Göttingen, Department of Marketing Research, won the special prize at the trafo:agrar competition with her work. Johanna Tepe investigated the purchasing behaviour of consumers (including willingness to pay) for various fruit and vegetable products in our project countries (Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda):
https://www.uni-vechta.de/koordinierungsstelle-transformationsforschung-agrar/news/details/transformation-und-keiner-geht-hin
You can watch her 3-minute presentation (in German) in the video at 3:21:00 / 4:18:19.


3rd FruVaSe Workshop from 29th to 1st October 2020 via Zoom

Our third project workshop had to take place online due to the Corona pandemic. However, we managed to get on board not only our whole FruVaSe team with most of the PhD and MSc students and some highly esteemed guests from the University of Nairobi, but also the agricultural extension officers and some farmers from the research districts in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda to participate on the first and second day of our workshop.

Through our external participants we got very good feedback on the presentations by students and were able to come up with a roadmap for knowledge dissemination during the final year of the FruVaSe project.

african green leafy veg sauce prep
African green leafy vegetable sauce preparation © Amina Ahmed

Highlights of the presentations and discussions:
  • External participants confirmed that post-harvest losses are a major issue among fruits and vegetables, for example, in Uganda about 50% of total produce and partly even up to 80% is lost or wasted.
  • The work on guava was appreciated by the extension worker who mentioned that so far guava in Kenya is seen as a child’s food only.
  • The development of the different fruit and vegetable products is very promising regarding retention of important nutrients such as iron, zinc, vitamin A and vitamin C, and shelf-life of the products
  • The findings of high rates of overweight and obesity among women in rural areas was alarming and need to be included in policy briefs/ information and awareness creation
  • It was tested that jackfruit waste in combination with other available agricultural waste can be used for biogas generation (e.g. for lighting and heating) while solar power is the power source of choice for food processing
  • For clean water supply, electro coagulation was found to successfully remove fluoride in different water types to allowable limits
  • Consumer awareness of the new products is badly needed to create demand and a market

For knowledge dissemination, the following points were discussed and agreed on:
  • How to involve farmers and/ or processors
  • Type of training materials and dissemination channels – for the short run (disseminate new technologies among established processors or processing cooperative) and the long run (mixed modalities of training with a focus on manuals for extension workers to train e.g. farmers who want to start processing)
  • How to ensure sustainability of e.g. a pilot site
  • Groups identified for cooperation in each of the six research district
particiants 3rd FruVaSe workshop
Participants during the 3rd Online FruVaSe Workshop




2ndnd FruVaSe Workshop from 16th to 18th September 2019 at Georg August University Göttingen, Germany

During our second project workshop – directly before the Tropentag conference in Kassel, which we attended afterwards together – field work highlights from each country and each work package were presented and challenges, possible amendments and way forward was discussed.
FruVaSe African Nightshade Relish Value Chain Tanzania

For each target fruit and vegetable at least one or more products have been developed or are under development. These products are:

fruvase_2ndws_table01

  • All fruit and vegetable products will be assessed for their nutritional value before and after processing and shelf-life stability will be tested. Focus will be on vitamins A (beta-carotene), B9 (folic acid), C, phenolic compounds and minerals such as iron and zinc among others.
  • Different processing techniques are currently tested such as cooking at different temperatures, fermentation, drying at different temperatures and various drying techniques namely open sun drying, solar drying, hot air drying and refractance window drying (RWD).
  • Energy and water needs for the processing of each product is collected to analyse the needs and possibly improve the processes.
  • The willingness to pay for the new products will be tested with consumers in the research areas in each country.

fruvase_2ndws_group


Kick-of workshop 8-10 October 2018 Arusha, Tanzania

For the FruVaSe kick-off workshop at Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology (NM-AIST), Arusha, Tanzania, participants from every partner University were present to first get to know each other and introduce and discuss the five work packages of the project. We agreed on the research regions in each country, which will be one for the selected fruit and one for the selected vegetable.

Our target fruits and vegetables are:

 

Kenya

Tanzania

Uganda

Fruit 

Cashew apple

Guava

Jackfruit

Vegetable

Vegetable cowpea

African nightshade

Cassava leaves &
Vegetable cowpea


A total of 10 PhD students and 10 MSc students are now working on their proposals to start with the field work in 2019. The focus will be on

  • determining the current usage, processing techniques, demands, possible constraints in processing and preservation etc. of the target fruits and vegetables through a baseline survey (all WPs).

  • processing techniques to be tested and evaluated regarding the nutrient content of the final products (WP3) and the energy needed for processing and which sources of energy are available (WP4).

  • consumer surveys to be applied for testing consumers attitude towards taste, packaging, price etc. of the final products (WP5).

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