Meshack Dionis is proud of his first rice harvest! Last year he took part in our ongoing training programme Mobile school for Sandawe agro-pastoralists. Thanks to heavy rainfalls in his region, Meshack has decided to grow rice. The young plants were provided to him by with Veterinarians without Borders.

"The rice is of very good quality!", tells us Meshack during...

For our ongoing projects we have been able to win a renowned international airline as a partner. It covers 100 % of our flight costs. With its more than 160 destinations worldwide, we can act even more flexibly in the future.

With regard to our project "Global Food Fraud - Time for action", this cooperation enables us to hold workshops and provide...

Ihnen allen gilt unser ganz besonderer Dank! Durch Ihre tatkräftige, oft bereits langjährige, Unterstützung von IMPFEN FÜR AFRIKA ermöglichen Sie es uns, schnell und unbürokratisch jenen Menschen in Ostafrika zu helfen, für die eine tierärztliche Versorgung keine Selbstverständlichkeit ist. Das gilt gleichermaßen für pastorale Gesellschaften und ihre Viehherden, als auch für die...

At the Vetmeduni Vienna, the working group "Global Food Safety", headed by Prof. Dagmar Schoder (President of Veterinarians without Borders), conducts research on this important topic. In 2008, the group was able to uncover a food scandal concerning milk powder in Africa that was contaminated with melamine and lead. Prof. Schoder was thus...

Africa depends on milk powder imports due to food bottlenecks. In addition, mothers are often malnourished or HIV-positive. To feed their babies, they depend on milk powder. But: Even low levels of harmful substances have serious consequences for babies and toddlers.

The market for milk powder and infant foods is particularly vulnerable to fraud. For example, cheap urea or melamine is added to the milk powder to fake an increased protein content, or the highly toxic and carcinogenic formaline to ensure longer durability.

This is the title of the current aid project of Veterinarians without Borders and at the same time the focus of the campaign VACCINATION FOR AFRICA 2020. Our goal is to hold workshops on food fraud in the poorest regions of the world and to carry out control examinations of food on-site. In cooperation with local food control authorities and universities professionals are trained....

Did you know that, in Africa alone, about 300 million people live in slums? This corresponds to the total population of Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland and Austria! Slum dwellers are purchasing their staple foods on the black market. Many of these foods are of inferior quality, adulterated or harmful to health.

For the past few years, Veterinarians without Borders has been on track of global food fraud. Our research in this field regularly leads us to the slums of African megacities. As in all developing regions, the monitoring of food is rather insufficient there.

Food fraud can have consequences on health or financially. The latter are associated with additional costs for the consumer or economic losses for trade.

In terms of health, however, food fraud can lead to allergies or permanent physical damage, even to death of consumers!