Prof Zerihun Tadele of University of Bern Switzerland. Photo credit Francois Stepman

The food bridge vzw was privileged to organize a workshop at the ongoing Tropentag 2018, as part of  the African Diaspora Projects Initiative . The theme of the workshop was “Linking African Diaspora agro food entrepreneurs to research and SMEs.  It is significant  that the organizers of Tropentag 2018 gave us this opportunity because not many  realize the  relevance of the African Diaspora  input in the agro food sector .  This workshop was a follow-up to our conference  at the Bouchout castle Meise Belgium  on the 25^th of April 2018, which  focused on the African Diaspora food market and  linking  research to diaspora investments in food processing and other  agricultural value chains.

The concept of the Tropentag workshop 5 is based on the premise that African Diaspora entrepreneurship,  is an overlooked opportunity for a sustainable input in the development discourse and policy making .

For years the focus has been on the remittances from African Diasporas, as a constant source of economic empowerment and development in many African communities. Now a new generation of African Diaspora entrepreneurs, are taking advantage of their global interconnections for innovative projects in the agro food sector in Africa and Europe. 
An engaged African Diaspora entrepreneur with links to research and SMEs is an asset in the development of Africa. 

The keynote speaker at the conference was Prof   Zerihun Tadale. Group Leader, Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Bern Switzerland, whose paper on the “Role of African scientific diaspora: Opportunities and Challenges”. The other speakers  and their presentations included -

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The Food Bridge vzw will be organizing a workshop on the 16th of September, as part of the preconference workshops of  2018 Tropentag conference at the university of Gent.  ( http://www.tropentag.de/conference/general.php). The theme of the workshop is 'Linking the Diasporans to research and European SMEs'. This session is organized in collaboration with Papaerd, the Bigpicnic project and FAAB vzw.

Tropentag, which is an annual interdisciplinary conference on research in tropical and subtropical agriculture, natural resource management and rural development is jointly organised by the universities of Berlin, Bonn, Göttingen, Hohenheim, Kassel-Witzenhausen, Hamburg, ZALF e.V., ETH Zurich (Switzerland), Czech University of Life Sciences Prague (Czech Republic), BOKU Vienna (Austria) and the Council for Tropical and Subtropical Research (ATSAF e.V) in co-operation with the GIZ Advisory Service on Agricultural Research for Development (BEAF).

More than 600 researchers and scientist working on tropical agriculture are expected at this event. Some of the keynote speakers are :

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