AFRICAN SCHOLARLY SCIENCE COMMUNICATIONS TRUST (ASSCAT)

INTRODUCING ASSCAT (2009)

African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development (AJFAND) will henceforth be published by the Africa Scholarly Science Communications Trust (ASSCAT). The Trust has been established to help African talent and leadership and facilitate training, research and sharing knowledge generated by African Scholars and practitioners with the rest of the world. ASSCAT will focus on the intellectual resource at the universities and match it with the intellectual capabilities at community level and in the private sector. It will also tap the intellectual resource among the Diaspora scholars.

ASSCAT will be the sole publisher of AJFAND, and subsequent publications aimed at disseminating development- type information that aims to enhance livelihoods of the majority low- resourced people of Africa. On the content ASSCAT aims to:

Nurture and mentor the next generation of scholars capable of not just thinking and doing research, but also being able to appropriately communicate the same to assist humanity by encouraging presence of excellence in education, research, leadership and integrity in conduct and moral values so as to fully equip and develop productive citizens of the African continent and the world.

Areas of coverage by ASSCAT are wide:

Agriculture in its broad sense including both plant and animal, food value chain including food processing and agro-processing, marketing agricultural technologies, nutrition, water and environment as far as they relate to food security and nutrition, effect of climate change and other contemporary issues including poverty -disease and nutrition nexus. To policy makers, food rights, governance, leadership, integrity, health such as HIV/ measurement, non-communicable diseases, food security and nutrition of vulnerable groups including children, poor women of child bearing age, promotion and agriculture as a business, use of inputs such as fertilizer to enhance smallholder productivity, and ensure government link, farmers to millers and also try to address issues of inequality, discriminatory and extreme practices which drive people to situation of hunger and anti-social behaviour.

ASSCAT is newly established and more information will become available as it takes on more activities. As of now, publication on AJFAND is its first activity.

ASSCAT Secretariat August 2009