Dr. Daniel N. Sila Affiliation: Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) Profession: Lecturer, Department of Food Science and Technology Key Qualifications Holds a PhD in Bioscience Engineering from KU Leuven, Belgium. Has over 10 years of experience in plant based foods work, particularly fruits and vegetables at research level and industrial set up. Has over 25 publications in international peer review journals of high impact and has presented in many international fora. Key strengths which highlight the major assignments pursued in the 5 years include being a project leader in VLIR-UOS funded beans project, Aus AID funded amaranth project, Mango JKUAT project, Cactus JKUAT project. Is currently a senior lecturer in the Department of Food Science and Technology and the Chairman of the Department of Agricultural Resource Economics (JKUAT). A Kenyan University Becomes a Centre of Excellence for Legume Research in East Africa through VLIR-UOS Own Initiative Funding Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) is one of the 23 public universities in Kenya. It was started as a middle level college in 1981 before it grew into a fully pledged university through the JKUAT Act of 1994. It is the 5th largest public university in Kenya seeking global excellence in Training, Research and Innovation for Development. It was initially meant to train graduates majorly in agricultural sciences before other Faculties were embraced: Science, Engineering, Biotechnology Research, Energy and Environment Technology, Computer Science and Information Technology, Tropical Medicine and Infectious Diseases, Human Resource Development, Architecture and Building Sciences (Figure 1). The main university campus has about 15,000 registered students drawn from all income classes and gender. The Faculty of Agriculture is well established and has four departments: Horticulture, Food Science and Technology, Agricultural Resource Economics and Land Resources and Animal Health. The Department of Food Science and Technology (FST) offers training in the areas of food science and technology, nutritional sciences, postharvest technology and food service and hospitality management to about 300 students. The training is offered at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The Department, therefore, aims at producing well trained graduates, provided with the knowledge and skills, to meet the manpower requirements of the food industry, postharvest handling systems and nutritional aspects depending on the degree program one enrolls in. The Department is, indeed, the only one of its kind in any University in the East, Central and Southern African regions, offering specialized training in Postharvest Science and Technology. The Department carries out both basic and applied research, geared particularly towards solving local problems.
Figure 1. The Main Gate of Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology The department of Food Science and Technology at JKUAT is the home for 7 IUPFOOD VLIR- UOS funded alumni students. These includes 2 KU Leuven PhD alumni from the Laboratory of Food Technology (Dr. Daniel Sila PhD 2007 and Dr. Ann Munyaka PhD 2011), a JKUAT PhD graduate (Dr. Michael Wawire PhD 2013) who carried part of his work at the Laboratory of Food Technology (LFT) at KU Leuven, and Dr. Joshua Arimi who graduated with a PhD from the University of Dublin (Ireland) but a former MSc graduate from LFT. Additionally, the following KULeuven UGent graduates were students at JKUAT: Juliana Kiio, Alice Ngima, Susan Ndirangu (deceased). Other MSc graduates from the IUPFOOD program from Kenya who trained at LFT are Silvenus Konyole (Nairobi University) and Daniel Njoroge MSc 2011 (Egerton University). Figure 2. Prof Marc Hendrickx s visit to Kenya (left) 2012 and (right) 2013 with his former/current students In 2011, FST and LFT jointly won a collaborative funding under the VLIR-UOS Own Initiative Program. The project is a North-South collaborative research led by Prof. Marc Hendrickx from LFT, KULeuven and Dr. Daniel N. Sila from FST, JKUAT. The project targets building students and staff capacity at JKUAT while addressing the Food and Nutrition Insecurity Problem in Kenya. FST has been faced with problems in teaching, research and extension due to insufficient funds for research and inadequate teaching capacity in a number of disciplines. The number of programmes and students is increasing while staff recruitment and training remains constant. The main objective of this proposal was to strengthen FST through capacity building (academic goal) while trying to mitigate food insecurity and malnutrition problems (development goal). It is in this perspective that the hard to cook (HTC) problem in common beans was identified as entry point due to the high prevalence of
the problem in the humidity, high temperature climatic conditions of Kenya (Figure 3). It is anticipated that scientific measures of reducing the hard to cook prevalence will be developed while creating a variety of cheap and highly nutritious bean based cuisines and formulae acceptable within the local communities. To highlight the major activities of the project, capacity building, research out puts and dissemination pathways will be discussed. Figure 3. Daniel Njoroge sampling various bean varieties found in Kenyan markets Capacity building at FST At the beginning of the project implementation, 2 PhD students were engaged in 2011 namely Mr. Daniel Njoroge (a MSc graduate of KULeuven) and Mr. Peter Kahenya (a JKUAT graduate). The students follow a sandwich program that allows them to spend two third of their time at the home university while travelling to Belgium to carry out the experiments that they cannot do at home due to equipment limitations. In order to fully understand what causes the hard to cook problem, Daniel Njoroge is trying to understand the mechanisms responsible for the hard to cook defect while Peter Kahenya looks at integrated food solutions for reversing the hard to cook defect and its impact on the nutritional properties of common beans and bean based recipes. By the end of 2014, 3 MSc students will have benefited from the project. Through the VLIR- UOS funding, a number of state of the art equipments have been bought at FST to strengthen the current infrastructural capacity (Figure 4). This includes an automated HPLC unit equipped with a diode array and refractive index detectors for fingerprinting a diverse range of the nutrient and antinutrient compounds, a UV-Vis spectrophotometer and a texture analyzer. Figure 4. Investment in equipment through VLIR-UOS funding indicating (left) a HPLC system, and (right) A desktop Computer and Color Printer
Scientific Milestones of the project A number of interesting results have been obtained midway in the project. First and most importantly, local bean varieties have been classified into hard to cook and easy to cook. Additionally, pectin related changes and the rate of moisture uptake have been identified as important mechanisms with regard to the HTC problem. Preliminary results indicate that the cooking time of beans can be reduced by 50% using low cost food processing technologies. Inclusion of beans in common starchy staple diets has been demonstrated as one of the best ways of averting the malnutrition problem while creating income by increasing the number of acceptable food products in common super markets. Outreach and dissemination of information In order to increase the adoption rate of the project outputs, a participatory approach is being employed where stakeholders within the different segments of the bean value chain are engaged. This was the genesis for the formation of a stakeholder platform which meets on a yearly basis to review project progress and to give corrective action. It is in this platform where the adoption process is catalyzed through engagement of the private and public sector players. The students have produced a number of bakery products using the pilot plant facilities at JKUAT (Figure 5) and show cased them in national and international exhibitions (Figure 6). Figure 5: Some of the products developed and exhibited in the shows (scones, cakes and cookies). They contain 50% cooked beans on wet basis (Red haricot variety). Figure 6: Participation in National Exhibitions: (left) Nairobi International Trade Fair and (right) Nyeri Show in 2013
It is anticipated that FST will strategically be transformed in to a center of excellence in legume research by the end of the Project. Thanks to the support from VLIR-UOS and the entire LFT team through the able leadership of Prof. Marc Hendrickx. Contact information Dr. Daniel N. Sila Lecturer Department of Food Science and Technology Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) Email: danielsila@agr.jkuat.ac.ke Website: http://www.jkuat.ac.ke/departments/foodscience/