World Food Program visits WorldVeg Mali

Seeing agricultural technologies and best practices in action helps to foster technical collaboration.

On 19 May 2021, a World Food Program (WFP) delegation visited the World Vegetable Center West and Central Africa – Dry Regions office at Samanko Research Station, Mali to learn more about WorldVeg technologies to enhance vegetable production and to discuss an offer for technical collaboration in the new WFP intervention strategy to increase the resilience of vulnerable populations.

Jean-Baptiste Tignegre, WorldVeg Officer-in-Charge, welcomed Moustapha Amadou (Resilience & Social Protection Officer – OIC/HoFO/Tombouctou), Didace Kayiranga (Programme Policy Officer, SO4 (FFA/SAMS) Coordinator), Abdoulaye Ilboudo (Programme Policy Officer, Nutrition-Sensitive Value Chain Project Coordinator), Aliou Coulibaly (Programme Policy Officer, Food Technologist), Marc Sauveur (Programme Policy Officer, SO2 School Meal Coordinator) and Aminata Touré (Programme Associate – Resilience) and guided the delegation on a field visit.

The group saw sack gardens, storage technologies (onion warehouse and evaporative cooling technologies such as pot coolers and zero-energy cooling chambers [ZECC]), the seed storage cold room (genebank), the postharvest and processing laboratory, the newly equipped Genetics and Plant Protection Laboratory, and a demonstration of the solar pump. The field tour ended with a display of vegetable seed, processed vegetable products (juices, brined vegetables, tomato and pepper concentrate, and purees), fresh vegetables, and nutrition and postharvest toolkits in French and Bambara.

At the sack gardens, Jean-Baptiste explained the importance of this simple but effective method to improve household nutrition. “Sack gardens are easy to set up,” he said. “Just select the location, use polypropylene bags filled with compost, cur some holes in the bags, plant seed or seedlings, and water.” These gardens require little space and can be placed everywhere.

Visitors saw an ongoing trial with African eggplant fruits stored in pot coolers and were impressed by the performance of this technology when they saw the quality of African eggplant stored in the pot coolers after nine days compared to fruit left at ambient conditions. Postharvest Specialist Kukom Edoh Ognakossan briefed the delegation on quality analysis activities (titratable acidity, total soluble sugar, and vitamin C content; firmness; color measurement) and vegetable processing practices. He also introduced the CoolBot, a device that allows a home window air conditioner to keep a well-insulated room for produce storage as cold as 35 °F (1.6 °C) while using about half the electricity of a comparably sized standard compressor.

In the genebank, Jean-Baptiste presented the vegetable species and lines available and explained how they are conserved.

After the field and facilities tour, the WFP delegation and WorldVeg team met to discuss opportunities for collaboration. Moustapha Amadou appreciated the field visit and efforts from both sides that resulted in the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between WFP and WorldVeg. WFP’s new strategy for resilience includes collaboration with national and international research partners. Jean-Baptiste gave a brief presentation on the proposal, and with the field visit, the WFP delegation was able to better understand the technologies WorldVeg could provide. WFP suggested WorldVeg focus on one accessible site (from a security point of view) in each region for the first year of intervention as pilot sites. Depending on the outcome of the first year, the experience will be replicated to other sites. WFP and WorldVeg are eager to work together and will meet again in late May-early June to finalize the technical offer.