Safe and Durable Food: How do we ensure it?
Authors:   African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development, Oniang'o Ruth 
Published: January 2025

Let me start by wishing all of us a happy 2025, with the hope that it turns out to be a year of bounty and joy. We are still in January and am not sure of what lies ahead. But we must always have hope, right? And as always, my thoughts are on what the food situation is going to be like especially for Africa. With climate events causing havoc all over the place and wars erupting everywhere, it is difficult to imagine us meeting the zero-hunger target by 2030. Already this year I have attended two events that have addressed two issues I am concerned about. One online meeting on traditional food processing technologies by IUFoST and the Association of African Universities was held just recently. Dr Vish Prakash, former President of IUFoST went ahead and shared the salient points.

It is important that Food Processing by Safe Local Traditional Processes does not get lost in the pursuit of Advanced Food processing
The safe final product has to reach the unreachable and the poor and must be sustainable harvest after harvest
The use of less energy and water and fewer resources has to be kept in mind
Science can advance but food preservation by simple methods of processing which also imbibes high Science in developing countries in Africa according to my experience has huge potential and IUFoST along with the Association of African Universities (AAU) must play a huge role in this advancement. One must be careful not to replace it
It needs to be affordable, appropriate, adaptable and an acceptable game changer of Food Processing so that Food is not lost or Wasted. By-Products and Co-Products Utilisation is essential with a holistic approach
Lastly, agriculture must be well understood in the region by those who recommend high-cost Processing Techniques for export purposes as the weather, soil, and rain pattern will decide which CROPS are healthily Grown and which cannot be grown. New crops introduction has to be carefully evaluated as the hundreds of years of AFRICAN DIVERSE FOOD CULTURE will not get lost to MONOCULTURE and in turn the Symbioses of Gut Microbiota with the Soil Microbiota is important to understand for Health and Wellness.

I then attended the CAADP + Malabo 10 summit in Uganda, hosted by the Government of Uganda and organized by the Africa Union. The communique sounded good in its draft form. The Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) adopted in Maputo in 2003, by African Heads of State to start taking Agriculture seriously, was held again in 2014 in Malabo (Capital City of Equatorial Guinea), to examine progress. New targets were set and ten years later it was time to hold another summit, this time in January of 2025. I was impressed by how often the following words kept coming up: healthy diets, diverse diets, nutritious foods, and made me to conclude that finally the world, and especially our African governments has come to realize that food is no food if it is not all those things.

By 2050, Africa's population is projected to grow to 2.8 billion with most of these young people under 35, and against a world population of 9.8 billion. To meet this population's needs, we have to think ahead regarding how we are going to feed all these people. In this regard, they committed to intensify sustainable food production, agro-industrialization, and trade. The strategy will also see Africa reduce post-harvest loss by 50 percent, triple intra-African trade in agrifood products and inputs by 2035, and raise the share of locally processed food to 35 percent of agrifood GDP by 2035. Adopting the strategy is seen as a pivotal moment that will lay the groundwork for agri-food systems across the continent, enabling countries to act.

How do we increase the food basket without having to grow more? Here the blue economy becomes very important, by getting more from the seas and rivers, and by reducing waste. And how do we do that? We have for decades now been urging farmers to farm for business, to increase their yields. But look, we need structures and expertise in place to manage post-harvest management of produce, whether that produce is coming from waters or the land. By so doing more, than 20-60 percent of food that goes to waste can fill up the food basket and thus address issues of hunger and malnutrition. And in terms of food processing, that is where food scientists come in. Paying greater attention to traditional food processing methods means refining where we can and modernizing where we need to make sure that ultimately the food we eat and take to the market is both nutritious and safe.

In 2025, I am very keen on this issue of food safety, healthy diets, and minimization of waste, are you?

We present, in this first issue of the year, 14 top articles, professionally processed.