USAID Feed the Future Food Safety Innovation Director Meets Vice Chancellor of AFU

Kathmandu: Director of the USAID Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Safety (FSIL), Haley Oliver, meets Vice Chancellor of Agricultural and Forestry University (AFU) today. He is also a Professor at Purdue University

Oliver meets with VC along with project team and University research leaders. The meeting is held as a part of facilitating ongoing project in Nepal. The recent project, ‘Drivers of safer food production and consumption in Nepal: Understanding the adoption of food safety practices and consumer consciousness in fresh produce’ is implementing by Tennessee State University (TSU) of the US and AFU.

The principal investigator (PI) of the project for FSIL-Nepal, Dr. Aditya Khanal from TSU and co-investigators from Nepal are present at the meeting. Before AFU visit, the FSIL-Nepal project team had meetings with USAID-Nepal mission in Kathmandu, the Department of Agriculture (DOA) of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Services, Nepal and with the NGO partner, Sahavagi in Chitwan.

The overall goal of the project is to enhance the food safety economic research and outreach in Nepal in the fresh produce sector and facilitate prioritized decisions on food safety investments, says source. Project PI Dr. Khanal, an Associate Professor of Agricultural Economics at Tennessee State University, provided an overview of the FSIL-Nepal project and ongoing activities in Nepal.

Meeting is coordinated by Assistant Professor Ram Hari Timilsina of AFU, who is leading the field implementation of the project in Nepal. On this time, FSIL-Nepal team with DOA at Harihar Bhawan, Director General of DOA, Dr. Rewati Raman Poudel and Deputy Director General Ms. Januka Pandit, and other officials’ commitment to collaborate and facilitate project activities.

DG Poudel assured to put hands together in need and also suggested to extend training activities of the project to extension agents for efficient transfer of food safety practices to both consumer and producer. In the meeting with Sahavagi, the board members and staffs of the organization interacted with project team on the field experience on consumer survey activities.  

Dr. Oliver expresses that she was impressed with the multi- sectoral interdisciplinary partnership and looks forward to the continued collaboration addressing food safety concerns in Nepal.