Beyond The Dialogues Project Challenges All Food Production Food Consumption No standards for regulating produce in the local/informal markets Poor decentralization and distribution of resources Risk of contamination/cooking methods Low adherence to safe practices (foodborne diseases) Poor water quality; access to safe water Unhealthy packaging practices: heavy use of plastics without recycling Low nutrition literacy Cultural and social misperceptions of healthy foods Food fraud (adulteration, substitution, dilution, tampering, counterfeiting, and misrepresentation) Pervasive poverty High cost of production – making agriculture “unattractive” Women smallholder farmers limited access to land, capital, labor resources Lack of access to gender-sensitive equipment especially to women Over dependency on rain fed agriculture Much attention given to cash crops hence low production of food crops causing food insecurity Poor access to finance and loan credit for the production of healthy and sustainable foods. Low capacity of local farmers to produce healthy and sustainable food Lack of storage facilities such as sheds for livestock to protect against impacts of weather changes Treatment of farmers as a homogenous group. Different categories of farmers have different needs which must be studied/addressed Lack of know-how and technology to implement climate-smart agriculture No standards for regulating produce in the local/informal markets Poor decentralization and distribution of resources Risk of contamination/cooking methods Low adherence to safe practices (foodborne diseases) Poor water quality; access to safe water Unhealthy packaging practices: heavy use of plastics without recycling Low nutrition literacy Cultural and social misperceptions of healthy foods Food fraud (adulteration, substitution, dilution, tampering, counterfeiting, and misrepresentation) Pervasive poverty
