17 Countries to Benefit from Sustainable Animal and Aquatic Foods Program
By Sharon Atieno
More than 15 low – and middle-income countries are set to benefit from the Sustainable Animal and Aquatic Foods (SAAF) program by the CGIAR, formerly known as the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research.
These countries include Kenya, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Mali, India, Malaysia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Colombia and Guatemala.
Rodrigue Yossa, Interim Director, CGIAR Sustainable Animal and Aquatic Foods Science Program said during the CGIAR Science Week, in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital.
According to Yossa, SAAF aims to improve the lives and well-being of people in these countries by sustainably transforming animal and aquatic food systems, so they foster inclusive, healthy and nutrient-dense food supply chains that are climate- and environmentally friendly.
“We want to improve the livelihoods of 1.7 million people across Africa, Asia Pacific and South America, making sure that they have access to nutrient-dense quality animal and aquatic foods,” he said, adding that this will be achieved through focusing on six interlinked areas of work.
One of the areas is productivity plus, where CGIAR will support animal and aquatic food producers in a socially inclusive manner as they adopt productivity enhancing innovations which are profitable reduce emissions and increase food nutrient value.
“This is really about making sure that we close the productivity gaps through innovations around genetics, feeds and forages as well as the health bundles… The plus here means that we want these systems to be profitable, to facilitate adoption by the youth and women. We also want them to be resilient,” Yossa explained.
In the climate and environment area, the program will bolster the efforts of communities within animal and aquatic food systems to adopt innovations that will increase social, economic, and environmental resilience.
Under one health area, CGIAR will develop and support innovations in animal and aquatic food systems to improve community health and well-being. “We want to ensure the safety of food production for the health of the animal and aquatic foods, but also the health of the people consuming them as well as the health of the ecosystem as a whole,” he noted, adding that the focus will be biosecurity, antimicrobial resistance and making aquatic food and animal food production more safe.
Market systems, policy solutions and scaling is another area where the organization will focus on strengthening market actors, including women, youth and marginalized groups, to participate in equitable, low-emission and resilient animal and aquatic food systems.
“We want to develop business models around animal and aquatic food production to facilitate adoption and make sure that we link up with scaling for impact to ensure the adoption and the use of all these innovations developed through the SAAF program,” Yossa noted.
In the gender, youth and social inclusion area, the program will support the efforts of animal and aquatic food producers and communities to adopt more equitable norms for women and youth empowerment.
Lastly, in the data and digital solutions area, the organization will assist all program-level outcomes in developing scalable innovations for improved productivity. The data will be particularly beneficial for informing policy.
The six-year program (2025-2030) is a collaboration among six CGIAR centres including WorldFish, International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Alliance Bioversity & CIAT, international Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), International Water Management Institute (IMWI) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).