From November 8th to November 12th the FoSaMed partners spent an entire week together in Morocco to assess the work done so far and lay solid foundations for the next activities.
The Ibn Tofail University of Kenitra hosted the first day of work which saw on the one hand internal discussions on the progress of the project, on the results of the assessment of needs and curriculum evaluation report and on the other hand a public conference on the agro- food and food safety in Morocco.
The public conference entitled “The Moroccan Agrifood Sector and Food Safety in Morocco: the role of the FoSaMed project” was opened by the presentation of the project by the Project Manager Sónia Bombico (UEVORA), coordinator of FoSaMed.
The introduction was followed by the presentation of the WP1 results by the IBN team (CHAOUCH ABDELAZIZ; AOUANE MAHJOUB; RAHALI KELTOUM; RAJIB BOUTHAINA) and the inspiring contribution of Hamid Felloun, from the associated partner FENAGRI, on the panorama of the agrifood sector in Morocco.
The event counted on the exceptional attendance of Ikram Riani, Responsible for food quality management in the company Komezmarof, who explained the reality of Food Safety in Morocco.
The second day, hosted by the Ecole Nationale d’Agriculture de Meknès, began with a warm welcome from the Director of Training and Cooperation who presented the university and accompanied the consortium on visits to the laboratories (teaching unit, central laboratory, laboratory of chemistry and department of theoretical and applied sciences).
The Institut Agronomique et Vétérinaire Hassan II welcomed the partnership in the remaining days of the week. The partners took the opportunity to face more general discussions as well, on project implementation balance, financial management, dissemination strategies. However, the focus of the week was the discussion around the development of the Master Plan in Food Safety and the teacher training plan and educational modules to be developed.
After a dynamic exchange on whether or not to establish a common year, possible specializations, and modules for each semester, access requirements and so on and so forth, the structure of the new joint Master Program on Food Safety was outlined and the timeline to prepare the documentation and launch the accreditation procedures established.
The time to visit the IAV buildings and laboratories was not lacking, it was an intense week that saw the consortium gathered for the first time since the beginning of the project and which has untied many knots that are already giving the next activities the right boost.