Innovative youth and women-based integrated farming practices for sustainable food and nutrition security in Tanzania, Nigeria and South Africa

Food and nutrition insecurity is still an imminent threat to a large proportion of the African human population. Our project aims at improving livelihoods, food and nutrition security, through developing and intensifying innovative youth and women-based integrated sustainable farming practices of resource poor farming communities in Tanzania. The specific objectives are to (1) increase productivity of smallholder farmers in two distinct agro-ecological zones in Tanzania by introducing and testing innovative and novel approaches for agricultural intensification developed in South Africa, (2) identify, test, promote locally affordable technologies in Tanzania and Nigeria, (3) intensify biodiversity conservation approaches for optimising locally available resources such as plant-based materials (4) improve management of agro-ecological processes and to harvest ecosystem services and functions sustainably (5) enhance food and nutrition security through the use of innovative storage, processing and packaging based on Nano-technologies (6) enhance capacity of researchers in harnessing indigenous knowledge (7) support youth and women in farming and development and to (8) develop a sustainable outreach program.