2021 was filled with accomplishments and support to the SME’s and cooperatives. MEFOSA has helped several entities in capacity building, women empowerment, and business development in Lebanon and abroad. In January 2021, MEFOSA supported 4 SME’s to develop their food safety practices and marketing strategies to be able to export their products, under a project funded by Mercy Corps Canada. MEFOSA also supported a fish farm (Salmon) in Al Naassa to develop their farming and production strategies, under a funding program from Mercy Corps Canada.

In supporting women and building their capacity, we have partnered with Mada under their funded projects to develop nutrition facts calculation and full product labels according to the FDA standards, for Mouneh products developed by a women cooperative in Akkar. We also trained a group of 20 women for a cooperative in Tal Hayat, to startup their frozen potatoes products line, by developing full product recipes and training them on safety practices.

Our SCP manager, Mrs. Manal Makki, was a speaker and mentor in PushStart on Agriculture, powered by Agrytech, where she discussed food security within Lebanon and the MENA region, and how the local/regional current circumstances are affecting the food security.

MEFOSA SCP department was the full scientific partner and conference organizer for Fi Africa 2021 in Cairo, Egypt. In this, we have fully developed the conference tracks, agenda, assigned a scientific jury, evaluated abstracts, and completed full conference organization. We were present in Cairo during August 2021 to manage our booth and conference. SCP manager was also present in Sahara Exhibition in Cairo during September 2021 to manage MEFOSA booth.

In collaboration with Agralytica USA, we have partnered to conduct a market analysis for the US Council of eggs & Poultry, within the MENA region. The project took place in UAE, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, & Lebanon, where our associates studied the market of each country on the export and import of eggs and poultry.

 

 

Manal M. Makki

SCP Manager