The technological and enterprise innovations that build livelihoods and food security in the food system must be reconfigured to be nationally and regionally relevant for Africa. Together with embracing the global needs of technological innovation, it is also important to pay attention to African indigenous crops and those that are intensively consumed in the continent, and entrenching their importance and relevance for global efforts to achieve food security. Thus, the focus of this research programme is twofold.

The first area of focus explores the organisational and technological innovation of food systems, in terms of food production and processing required to maintain and improve livelihoods through enterprise development for food security. Specifically, this refers to the creation and processing of ‘SMART’ [safe, marketable, affordable, ready to eat and tasty] foods and food ingredients that have been enriched to combat malnutrition and diet-related non-communicable diseases; as well as developing appropriate food processing technologies to enable entrepreneurs to produce affordable, safe, convenient, consumer-driven, nutritious foods and food ingredients.

The second focus of this programme aims to prevent the negative impact of drought and heat stress on food and nutrition security, without reducing soil health and without excessive use of limited water resources. The research will explore innovative solutions to sustainably improve agricultural crop and livestock resilience to climate and environmental change, while addressing aspects related to safety and quality of agricultural produce that are impacted by these changes.