NUTRiGREEN

SLE is pleased to announce the official start of the NUTRiGREEN project. Funded through the ERA NET FOSC, NUTRiGREEN is a €0.8 million three-year project (2021-2024), aiming to contribute to sustainable development by enriching diets with traditional plants, to improve the health, nutrition and income of the local populations in the two project regions of Zitenga in Burkina Faso and Thies in Senegal. By strengthening agroecological farming production methods for the cultivation of traditional plants; by upgrading resilient value chains, which are efficient and generate income for farmers. The project will focus on plants that are preferred by the co-research farmers, and include traditional trees such as Moringa (Moringa oleifera), Baobab (Adansonia digitata), Hibiscus (Hibiscus sabdariffa L.), Senna tora (Cassia tora), Jute Mallow (Corchorus olitorius L.), amongst others. In the process, NUTRiGREEN will train young entrepreneurs to develop business models, as well as engage and foster young academics. Results will be disseminated to national and regional initiatives, government bodies and our partner network as well as the local media, scientific journals, conferences, a NUTRiGREEN final conference with exhibition, internet platforms, and social media.

NUTRiGREEN is a collaboration between African and European institutions, Cheikh Anta Diop University (UCAD), in Senegal; Institut de Recherche en Sciences de la Santé (IRSS), in Burkina Faso; the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), in Sweden; and the Centre for Rural Development (SLE) at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany. In addition to the two African project partners, NUTRiGREEN is developing collaboration with a number of local, national and regional institutions and organisations and is connecting with grassroots projects in order to achieve its objectives and establish a basis for further relevant research and innovative initiatives in the region.