QUICK LINKS
Organizations/Projects
Agence Fruits et Legumes Frais (APRIFEL)
International Fruit and Vegetables Alliance (IFAVA)
International Society for Horticultural Science Commission on Fruits and Vegetables and Health
Nutrition, Information, Communication & Health (FAO)
PROFAV2011 (FAO)
School Gardens (FAO)
World Health Organization of the United Nations (WHO)
Publications/Databases
Codex Alimentarius main purposes of this Programme are protecting health of the consumers and ensuring fair trade practices in the food trade, and promoting coordination of all food standards work undertaken by international governmental and non-governmental organizations
World Health Organization. Promotion of Fruit and Vegetable Consumption Around the World (PROFAV or PROFEL)
INFOODS goal is to stimulate and coordinate efforts to improve the quality and availability of food analysis data worldwide and to ensure that anyone anywhere would be able to obtain adequate and reliable food composition data
HORTICULTURE FOR HEALTH NEWS AND EVENTS
Please go to the horticultural events section for upcoming events.
Anglophone Africa Regional PROFAV Workshop proves successful
Published on 28th Oct 2011
The Workshop on the Promotion of Fruit and Vegetables for Health (PROFAV) was held in Arusha, Tanzania from 26 to 30 September 2011. The workshop was organized under the patronage of The Honourable Minister for Agriculture Food Security and Cooperatives of the United Republic of Tanzania. The event was supported by WHO, FAO, GlobalHort. CIRAD, NEPAD, TAHA and HODECT. Financial contributions were provided by Belgium and France and were gratefully acknowledged.
Draft general report, conclusions and Recommendations (pdf)
Participants (pdf)
Bitter gourd can be beneficial to help prevent or conrol diabetes
Published on 13th Nov 2011
AVRDC - The World Vegetable Centre has just posted a news release, 
"Eating bitterness to beat diabetes: In any language, a recipe for health."
Shanhua, Taiwan—In line with the World Diabetes Day theme of “Act on Diabetes. Now.” AVRDC – The World Vegetable Center will distribute recipe brochures starting Monday, November 14, 2011 to promote the consumption of bitter gourd (Momordica charantia) in communities in India, Tanzania, Thailand, and Taiwan.
AVRDC Director General Dyno Keatinge
will join AVRDC South Asia staff and colleagues from the International
Crops Research Institute for the Semi Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) for a
Global Diabetes Walk to further raise awareness of the disease. The walk
will be held November 14 on the ICRISAT campus in Hyderabad, India.
The colorful recipe brochures with preparation instructions in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kiswahili, Thai, and English feature tasty dishes tailored to local tastes. Bitter gourd can be eaten raw in salads or as juice, or cooked in stews, soups, or stir-fried dishes. The vegetable is already popular in India, so the brochures provide different versions of bitter gourd curry to suit regional tastes. In East Africa, bitter gourd is a relatively unknown vegetable; a stew recipe combines it with local favorite okra to please palates.
Pinstrup-Andersen Speaks at UN on his new book on African hunger: Barriers need to be broken down
Published on 19th Nov 2010
To improve human health and nutrition in sub-Saharan Africa, barriers that exist between the food and health systems need to be broken down, said Per Pinstrup-Andersen speaking at the United Nations Nov. 12, and new incentives must be established to encourage multidisciplinary work.
Academics and policymakers working within the food system and human health and nutrition sectors exist in self-contained "silos" that lack collaboration across disciplines, Pinstrup-Andersen said in an interview prior to his U.N. talk, which focused on the themes of the new book, "The African Food System and Its Interaction with Human Health and Nutrition" (Cornell University Press, 2010), edited by Pinstrup-Andersen.
Anna Herforth is the author of Chapter 7, "Nutrition and the Environment: Fundamentals to Food Security in Africa." Herforth is a recent PhD graduate in international nutrition from Cornell University and is currently working as a Nutrition Specialist at the World Bank. She states that "There is strong evidence that households with home gardens consume more fruits and vegetables than those without home gardens." (p. 143).
Africa's Record in Dealing with Malnutrition Dismal
Published on 28th Sep 2010
The August 1, 2010 issue of African Press International reports on the African Union Summit Side-event on Food and Nutrition held in Kampala July 24-26, 2010.
The theme of the AU meeting was “Maternal, Infant and Child Health and Development in Africa”, so it was an apt opportunity to wave the flag. “Nutrition is practically an orphan,” Mkandawire commented. About 40 percent of children younger than five in Africa are chronically malnourished.
Rémi Kahane, Executive Secretary of the Global Horticulture Initiative, a non-profit programme, said growing vegetables not only brought a better income for small-scale farmers but also improved their diet.
Giyose, Prof Richard Mkandawire, head of NEPAD’s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), Prof John Joseph Otim, senior presidential advisor to the Ugandan government, and various other ministers, government officials, NGO and UN representatives, were keen on drawing up a statement to spur action on nutrition during the AU meeting. Read More
Current Status of Fruits and Vegetables Production and Consumption in Francophone African Countries - Potential Impact on Health
Published on 31st Oct 2009
J. Ganry, CIRAD, has recently published this article in Proc. IInd IS on Human Health Effects of F&V Acta Hort. 841, ISHS 2009 p. 249-255
This paper is a synthetic view of the situation of the production of fruits and vegetables and their availability for local consumption in francophone countries of Africa, in relation with some chronic diseases, such as diabetes and obesity. It is based on data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) and information collected through a survey made in each of the twenty francophone countries of Africa and Indian Ocean. The survey was in preparation of the workshop on “Promotion of fruits and vegetable for health in francophone African countries”, held in Yaounde, Cameroon, on 23-26th of October, in the framework of the FAO-WHO initiative.
There is a great diversity of situations related to the geographic position, the cultural traditions behaviour and economic situation. Very few countries are reaching the recommended intake of 400g of fruits and vegetables per capita and per day. These are humid-forest countries including Cameroon, Gabon, Guinea, Rwanda, and Burundi, where banana and plantains are the fruits most consumed. On the other side, the situation in Sahelian countries like Burkina-Faso, Chad, Mali, and Mauritania is even worse with an availability below one third of the critical level.
A first analysis of data from FAO and WHO is supporting the assumption of a relation between a low consumption of fruits and vegetable and a high prevalence of chronic diseases like diabetes and obesity in some conditions. (...full article)
PROFEL - Bulletin d'information will keep you Informed in Promoting Horticulture for Health in Africa
Published on 28th Oct 2009
Le lancement de ce bulletin s’inscrit pleinement dans cette dynamique de communication dont l’objectif est de maintenir les liens entre les participants à l’atelier de Yaoundé, d’y associer le pays qui n’ont pas pu y être représentés et de sensibiliser l’ensemble des acteurs concernés par cette initiative à l’importance de la promotion des fruits et légumes pour la santé face aux enjeux de sécurité alimentaire, de santé publique et de lutte contre la pauvreté en Afrique sub-saharienne.
The communication objective of this newly launched newsletter has the clear intent to support links between the participants in the workshop of Yaoundé, to link it the countries that could not be represented and to sensitize all the actors concerned with this initiative relating to the importance of the promotion of fruits and vegetables for health faced with the issues of food security, public health and conflict against poverty in sub-Saharan Africa.
Bulletin PROFEL en Afrique #5 Oct, 2009
Bulletin PROFEL en Afrique #4 Feb-Mr, 2009
Bulletin PROFEL en Afrique #3 Jan, 2009
Bulletin PROFEL en Afrique #2 Nov-Dec, 2008
Bulletin PROFEL en Afrique #1 Oct, 2008
PROFEL Poster: Les Pays du Sud Feb, 2009
Contact:Christelle Monier Agro-Ecologue INRA/CIRADInternational and National Cooperation in Horticultural Science CIRADTA B103/PS4Boulevard de la Lironde34398 Montpellier Cedex 5Tel: +33 (0)467615800, demander le poste 5482Fax : + 33 (0)467617564 christelle.monier@cirad.fr
Promotion de la consommation des fruits et légumes (PROFEL) / Promotion of the Consumption of Fruit and Vegetables (PROFAV)
Workshop on the Promotion of Fruit and Vegetables in Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa, October 23-25, 2007, Yaoundé, Cameroon
IRAD and CIRAD, on the initiative of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO), organized this workshop on the "Promotion of Fruit and Vegetables in Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa" (PROFEL) that was attended by 76 experts from 16 African countries, and many representatives of international organizations. The conclusion was that horticultre, health and education must work together to mitigate poor nutrition and poverty in Africa. GlobalHort offered to host further PROFEL information on its GlobalHort website and will provide further support in any way it can. At the meeting RADHort looked at the linkages between PROFEL and RADHort and suggestions were made pertaining to changes in its statutes and management.
International Fruit and Vegetable Summit, May 27-30, 2008, Paris, France.
The first International Fruit and Vegetable Summit, was held in Paris with the support of EGEA♣ (planners of the International Conference of the Health Benefits of Fruit and Vegetables), IFAVA (the International Fruit and Vegetables Alliance), in relation with WHO (the World Health Organization), FAO (the Food and Agriculture Organization) and UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). The focus was on a global and multisectoral approach geared to increase fruit and vegetable consumption. For many years, there have been parallel efforts across sectors to increase fruit and vegetable consumption, with research and education campaigns by the public health and scientific communities and nongovernmental organizations on the one hand, and marketing campaigns by the fruit and vegetable industry on the other. Building upon the strength of the EGEA and IFAVA conferences and symposiums, this joint international conference gathered key stakeholders to capitalize on cross-sectoral expertise to find solutions to this important issue. (...More in English; More in French)
♣ A series of conferences organized with commercial sponsorship from Freshfel and Aprifel. Egea refers to the first conference devised near the Egean (Aegean) Sea.