FOREWORD

Dear friends of AJFAND

Please receive New Year greetings from Rural Outreach Program, Publishers of Africa Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development (AJFAND).

I, as Editor-in-Chief of AJFAND, am happy to announce the release of Vol.4 No 2, which should have come out before the close of 2004. However, due to circumstances beyond our control, we are able only just now, to release this issue.

The past year did not end well for us, as I lost my dear mother, rather suddenly and thus most of our plans for end of year were thrown into disarray.

But then, such is life. We plan, but our creator planned a long time ago. We continue to stay completely online and would like to thank most sincerely, our authors, reviewers, readers, advisors and friends, for their worthy support towards this journal.

We at AJFAND, together with ROP were privileged to host the launch meeting of the Society of Africa Journal Editors (SAJE) on 16 th and 17 th December, 2004 , in Nairobi Kenya . This was a successful launch with sponsorship from the Rockefeller Foundation, ASARECA, INASP, MONSANTO Company, USA , and IFPRI.

Objectives of SAJE are:

•  to facilitate and organize capacity-building activities geared towards improving the editorial and managerial skills of editors of African scholarly journals as well as raising the quality of journals published in Africa ;

•  to facilitate networking and promote the sharing of information, experience, resources and expertise among African journal editors as well as between them and their colleagues elsewhere in the world;

•  to improve the promotion, marketing and distribution of African journals, and contribute to their sustainability;

•  to mobilize resources and provide support for the strengthening and growth of African journals;

•  to promote maximum utilization of African journals in the academia, the development community and among policy-makers; and,

•  to enhance international visibility of African journals.

In the short 2-day meeting, which had a participation of 20 professionals, we were able to rectify the Draft constitution of SAJE, adopt the logo, and develop a strategic plan. Our motto as SAJE is to ensure support for reviewers, promote quality of published material and try to get our Africa journals indexed; we all believe we can DO IT.

Enjoy the reading and please feel free to point out any errors you might notice.

Thank you

Prof. Ruth K. Oniang'o
Editor-in- Chief, AJFAND