RUNRES Project Updates
The RUNRES (Rural-Urban Nexus: Establishing a nutrient loop to improve city-region food system Resilience) team held their 5th Annual Meeting in Nyamata, Rwanda, bringing together members from Switzerland, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and South Africa.
The Flagship Project Enhancing Resilience in Food Systems seeks to directly contribute to food systems resilience by supporting decision-making in practice through stakeholder participation in case studies and academic education. The project was initiated in 2013 and is led by World Food System Center member Johan Six. Here are some of the latest updates.
RUNRES Annual Meeting
The RUNRES (Rural-Urban Nexus: Establishing a nutrient loop to improve city-region food system Resilience) team held their 5th Annual Meeting in Nyamata, Rwanda, bringing together members from Switzerland, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and South Africa. The meeting aimed to highlight key lessons from Phase I, focusing on the challenges encountered in upscaling innovations, and to emphasize the rationale behind the upscaling strategies for Phase II. Discussions centered on the requirements and boundaries for this next phase, ensuring all participants had a clear understanding of the various paths available for upscaling current innovations and the necessary conditions for success. The inclusion of gender, youth, and marginalized communities in Phase II was also a significant topic of discussion.
Building capacity in laboratory testing of soil inputs
The safe use of soil inputs from organic and human waste streams is hindered by the difficulty to accurately assess quality parameters (agronomic parameters, potentially toxic elements, and pathogens). Inconsistent data from various laboratories complicates comparisons with environmental regulations. To address this, RUNRES plans an interlaboratory ring trial to build capacity across labs in different regions. This initiative is a critical step towards improving food system resilience by ensuring safe and effective soil inputs and maintaining the sustainability of quality assessments in project countries after the project concludes.
Three labs from each project country (research institutes, commercial labs, and universities) will be selected based on their commitment and capability to analyze the required quality parameters. These labs will test local RUNRES products and a reference sample, with results compared to those from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Nairobi.
Visits were made to 22 labs across the RUNRES network to evaluate their capabilities. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, Ethiopia, and Rwanda, several institutions were assessed for their suitability. The most suitable labs have been identified, and the next step is to submit samples to these selected labs.