Bringing Food Security Workshops to Mali and Morocco

May 2017 – Mali & Morocco

We-Empower Inc., a Washington, DC-based agricultural and food security consulting group officially launched its field services with a series of meetings and workshops in Mali and Morocco.

The We-Empower team, led by CEO Noubia Gribi-Hussain, included William Stewart, COO, and Rostane Gribi, Communications Director. The meetings and roundtable discussions created a forum for the attendees to discuss the various aspects of post-harvest losses in the two countries and how to reduce them.

Post-harvest losses are a serious problem throughout Africa. Factors such as weather, transportation and inadequate storage often damage or destroy massive quantities of food, before it can reach consumers. The We-Empower team possesses many decades of experience in this sensitive area of food security and food safety.

Its mission is to provide solutions to reduce post-harvest losses and improve food availability, through the most efficient and cost effective food security storage units. We-Empower provides management solutions as well for storage facilities to ensure the complete protection of post-harvest yields.

Meetings and working sessions in Mali were hosted by local partner ADICOM for the multiple stakeholders, donors, and government agencies. We-Empower expertise in Livestock for animal health, reproduction, processing, packaging, and marketing practices were also part of the discussion with the relevant audience.

Among those attending were representatives from:

ACDI/VOCA
ADICOM: Association pour le Développement des Initiatives Communautaires
AfDB : African Development Bank
CILSS : Comité Permanent Inter-Etats de Lutte contre la Sécheresse dans le Sahel
DNPIA : Direction Nationale des Productions et des Industries Animales
FAO : Food and Agriculture Organization
OMA : Observatoire du Marchés Agricoles
OPAM : Office des Produits Agricoles du Mali
USAID : U.S. Agency for International Development
WFP : World Food Program

Meetings and working sessions in Morocco were hosted by local partner Mohammed Bensouda @Expand Consulting and Professeur El Rhaffari Lhoussaine (R&D Services et Produits de Terroir / écosystème ).

The team visited several storage silos in Fes area for wheat and dry commodities, as well as refrigerated storage for perishables in Casablanca. Other meetings took place with the following:

ANOC : Association Nationale Ovine et Caprine
FAO : Food and Agriculture Organization
FENIP : La Fédération des Industries de Transformation et de Valorisation des Produits de la Pêche
FICOPAM : Fédération des Industries de la Conserve des Produits Agricoles du Maroc
Maroc Taswiq