Prolinnova network members from Benin and Kenya involved in NaviNut, a project under the Prolinnova umbrella, took part in the Tropentag 2022 (TT22) held in Prague, Czech Republic, on 15–18 Sept 2022. The “Tropentag” (German for “Tropical Day”) is an annual international conference on research in tropical and subtropical agriculture and rural development. TT22 was organised by the Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences at the Czech University of Life Sciences with the theme “Can agroecological farming feed the world? Farmers’ and academia’s views”.
The coordinator of NaviNut – Brigitte Kaufmann, Director of Research, German Institute for Tropical & Subtropical Agriculture (DITSL) – in collaboration with Prolinnova, organised a pre-conference workshop on NaviNut’s action research in northern Benin and northern Kenya. The researchers are working together with local agropastoral women who are innovating in feeding their small children, using locally available resources, and also improving household incomes by processing and marketing baby foods.
The workshop, entitled “Experiences in collaboration with societal actors in transdisciplinary research on child nutrition in drylands in Benin and Kenya”, gave an opportunity to reflect on experiences made by the researchers. It looked at how they built good relations with the mothers and tried to dismantle hierarchies and how they considered the mothers’ interests and perspectives to be able to move into a phase of co-creating innovations. Participants in this workshop included Georges Djohy, coordinator of Prolinnova–Benin, and Hussein Wario, Director of the Centre for Research & Development in Drylands (CRDD) and member of Prolinnova–Kenya.
During the main conference, several NaviNut partners presented papers and posters based on their research.
