The International Network on ‘Preserving safety and nutrition of indigenous fruits and their derivatives’ brings together partners from the United Kingdom, France, Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Sri Lanka and Vietnam and is funded by Leverhulme Trust. The network secretariat is hosted by the Centre for Underutilised Crops at the University of Southampton.

This interdisciplinary research network aims to promote technical innovation and cooperation in the production-to-consumption system of indigenous fruits in the Asian region. Indigenous fruits are an important but often overlooked resource, contributing to the economic and nutritional resilience of both rural and urban people. Constraints to increased use of indigenous fruits include poor fruit processing, an insufficient range of products, lack of storage, inferior packaging, inadequate quality assurance and poor knowledge of hygiene.

This network supports the application of innovative processing technology and value chain governance tools (e.g. standards) to improve livelihoods of both producers and consumers of indigenous fruit in Asia. Key research themes include:

The network organised five training and research workshops in 2011-13, bringing together researchers, entrepreneurs and policy-makers. It also supported several catalytic research projects to contribute to the development of larger collaborative research proposals.

Copyright of images

Dragonfruit: annamatic3000 Mango: gebba1 & pinoy photographer Amla: ianonnaeli Jackfruit: tony withers photography All at flickr