Integrated Chia and Oyster Mushroom System for Sustainable Food Value Chain in Africa (CHIAM)
The project “Integrated Chia and Oyster Mushroom System for Sustainable Food Value Chain in Africa (CHIAM)”, has organized an in-depth stakeholder’s workshop, to be held on May 12, 2023, at DeKUT, to be attended by all project partners, from the six participating countries.
The purpose of this workshop is to create a forum for project stakeholders to gain more insight into chia and oyster mushroom farming and value chain mapping in the region.
The project is being coordinated by DeKUT represented by Dr. Monica Mburu (Principle Investigator), Prof. Ngigi Murimi (GIS Expert) and Dr. Peter Mwirigi (Agronomy Expert).
The project aims at deployment of the integrated chia-mushroom value chain that contributes to the diversification and resilience of African food systems against the impacts of climate change.
Consortium Partners
- Kenya:Dedan Kimathi University of Technology (DeKUT) – Expertise Food science and technology, GIS agronomic aspects of chia, pigs rearingas well as mushrooms, and capacity building of farmers.
- Germany; Universität Hohenheim (UH) – Expertise: Food Science and technology, cereal science, optimization of processes, modelling
- Hungary; Pilze-Nagy Ltd (Pilze) - Expertise: Applied research of biomass valorization technologies, agricultural waste management, mushroom cultivation, and biogas production Bay Zoltan Nonprofit Ltd for Applied Research (BZN) – Expertise: Laboratory analyses, microbial and molecular biological monitoring, feeding experiments, LCA, LCC, S-LCA,
- Egypt; Agricultural Research Center (ARC) – Expertise: Plant breeding, Molecular biology, Agricultural mobile application
- Algeria; Centre de Recherche Scientifique et Technique sur les RégionsArides (CRSTRA) – Expertise: Plant physiology and bioactive molecules, agronomic aspects, GIS and modeling, water management and smart irrigation
In summary the CHIAM consortium is addressing and answering the following research topics:
Promote innovative technology deployment to build sustainable and resilient food value chains influenced by changing food needs and patterns, and to develop better efficiency of the inputs and outputs of food systems;
Improve resilience and reduce volatility in agri-food production and food markets to sustainably improve food security in the context of climatic variation;
Reduce food losses under climate change, including novel approaches to valorise side streams and reduce food waste.
Food Science research involves development of fortified African products with chia and oyster mushroom addition and provide the nutritional information of the fortified products.