Consortium leader: Université de Liège, Belgique
Consortium: ERAIFT, RDC; Univ Liège, Belgique; ENABEL, RDC
RESSAC contribution (€): 303 345
The project is based on a strong and closely interacting consortium of the following partners Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech of the University of Liège in Belgium, ERAIFT in Congo and Enabel. The project aims at the agro-ecological intensification of sustainable agriculture systems for the promotion of food security in the peri-urban forest areas of the Tshopo province in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This project is structured around three pillars and includes an important gender aspect. The first activity will be a socio-economic survey aiming to identify the main problems encountered in post-harvest storage and seed conservation in the area (insects, fungi potentially producing mycotoxins). This survey will also identify current protection practices used to protect stored commodities and seeds. In a second phase, local resources derived from forest co-products will be evaluated for their capacity to address the problems identified in the socio-economic survey. It will include the chemical characterization of the forest co-products and the study of the mode of action of the targeted metabolites for their insecticidal/fungicide activity. Based on this study, sustainable and adapted to local conditions solutions will be formulated in order to drastically reduce post-harvest losses of stored commodities and to increase seed quality. Particular attention will be paid to the appropriation of the proposed solutions and the sustainability of their use through the active participation of women farmers.
Partners
