Building trust in our food systems — from how food is produced to how it is sourced, sold and consumed.
Across Africa and many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), food systems face growing challenges. Farmers are navigating rising production costs, climate variability, limited market opportunities and increasing expectations around food safety, sustainability and responsible production.
At the same time, consumers are becoming increasingly concerned about the safety, quality and origins of the food they eat. Questions about food adulteration, contamination, unsafe and unethical production practices and product authenticity are bringing renewed attention to the need for greater transparency and accountability across agricultural value chains.
Buyers and food businesses also face growing pressure to source products responsibly, demonstrate quality and safety, and respond to changing consumer expectations.
Yet significant gaps remain.
Many farmers lack access to the technical support, resources and market opportunities needed to adopt and sustain improved production practices. Existing certification and assurance systems can be costly, complex or poorly adapted to local realities, particularly for small and medium-scale producers.
Buyers may struggle to identify reliable producers who can demonstrate responsible practices, while consumers often have limited access to credible information about how their food is produced and where it comes from.
Building better food systems requires connecting these different actors — supporting farmers to produce responsibly, enabling buyers to source with confidence, and empowering consumers to make informed food choices.
This is the vision behind AgrowSAFE.
Established by One Health and Development Initiative (OHDI), AgrowSAFE is an integrated responsible food production, verification, market-access and stakeholder engagement framework designed to advance safer, more transparent, ethical and sustainable agricultural food systems.
What is AgrowSAFE?
AgrowSAFE is built around four guiding principles represented by the acronym – S.A.F.E.:
- Sustainable: Promoting agricultural practices that protect natural resources, support environmental stewardship and strengthen long-term productivity and resilience.
- Accessible: making responsible production guidance, support, and market opportunities more accessible to farmers, while empowering consumers with reliable, simplified information about food safety, quality, sourcing, and production practices. .
- Food-Safe: Supporting practices that reduce food safety risks and strengthen food quality, hygiene, traceability and responsible input use.
- Ethical: Promoting responsible treatment of animals, fair and ethical food production practices, and accountability across agricultural value chains.
Together, these principles provide a practical foundation for improving how agricultural food products are produced, handled, sourced and brought to market.
AgrowSAFE supports farmers and agribusinesses to assess, document and improve their production practices, while creating opportunities to demonstrate compliance with defined requirements and connect with buyers seeking responsibly produced agricultural products.
Beyond farm-level improvements, AgrowSAFE also recognizes the important roles of buyers, consumers, government institutions and other stakeholders in creating demand and enabling conditions for responsible food production. The initiative therefore combines farmer support, verification, market access and public awareness within a coordinated food systems approach.
Why AgrowSAFE Matters
The safety and sustainability of our food systems are closely connected to human, animal, plant and environmental health.
Unsafe production and handling practices can create risks for public health. Poor animal welfare practices can compromise the well-being of farmed animals, while inappropriate antimicrobial use can contribute to antimicrobial resistance. Unsustainable agricultural practices can also affect ecosystems, natural resources and the long-term resilience of food production.
Addressing these challenges requires more than isolated interventions.
Farmers need practical guidance, technical support and incentives to improve their practices. Buyers need access to credible suppliers and reliable sourcing information. Consumers need accurate, accessible information to understand the food they purchase and consume. Government institutions and other stakeholders also play essential roles in establishing standards, strengthening oversight and supporting responsible agricultural development.
AgrowSAFE brings these interconnected needs together through a One Health approach that recognizes the importance of protecting people, animals and the environment.
Through its activities, AgrowSAFE seeks to:
- Support farmers and producers to adopt responsible, food-safe and sustainable production practices across animal and crop agriculture.
- Improve transparency, documentation and traceability across agricultural value chains.
- Promote animal health and welfare, responsible antimicrobial use and environmental sustainability.
- Strengthen buyer access to producers who can demonstrate responsible production practices.
- Increase consumer awareness of food safety, quality, origins and production practices.
- Encourage informed consumer choices and responsible sourcing commitments.
- Support partnerships, learning and continuous improvement across food systems.
Connecting Farmers, Buyers and Consumers
A central feature of AgrowSAFE is its recognition that responsible food production and responsible food consumption are interconnected. Farmers may be willing to improve their production practices, but sustaining those improvements often requires access to supportive services, viable markets and buyers who recognize the value of responsible production.
Similarly, buyers may be interested in sourcing responsibly produced food, but need credible information about suppliers, production practices and product quality.
Consumers also play an important role. Their knowledge, expectations and purchasing decisions can influence how food businesses approach sourcing and how producers respond to market demand.
AgrowSAFE seeks to strengthen these connections through three complementary areas of engagement.
Supporting Farmers to Produce Responsibly
AgrowSAFE provides a structured pathway through which farmers and producers can understand relevant production requirements, assess their existing practices, identify areas for improvement and work progressively toward responsible production standards.
The framework addresses areas such as farm management, food safety, animal health and welfare, crop health, responsible antimicrobial use, environmental management, production documentation and traceability.
Its approach emphasizes practical improvements and continuous learning rather than treating compliance solely as a pass-or-fail exercise.
Supporting Buyers to Source with Confidence
AgrowSAFE engages retailers, food businesses, distributors, institutional buyers and other market actors interested in responsible sourcing.
Through farmer engagement, production assessments and market-linkage activities, the initiative aims to strengthen connections between producers and buyers seeking agricultural products that meet defined food safety, welfare, sustainability and ethical requirements.
This approach seeks to create greater market recognition and opportunities for farmers who demonstrate responsible production practices, while helping buyers strengthen transparency and accountability within their supply chains.
Empowering Consumers Through Food Awareness
Responsible food systems also depend on informed consumers. AgrowSAFE recognizes that consumers should have access to credible information about the food they eat, including how it is produced, processed, handled and sourced.
Through public education, digital communication, media engagement and community outreach, AgrowSAFE aims to improve food literacy, encourage informed purchasing decisions and strengthen public understanding of responsible food production.
These activities will address a broad range of food products and topics, including food safety, adulteration, contamination, food quality, animal welfare, antimicrobial stewardship, environmental sustainability and responsible sourcing.
Introducing KYF: Know Your Food
As part of its consumer awareness activities, AgrowSAFE is introducing Know Your Food (KYF), a recurring educational content series designed to help consumers better understand the everyday foods they purchase and consume.
From fruits and vegetables to fish, poultry, eggs, grains and processed foods, KYF will explore familiar food products and answer practical questions about their production, quality, safety, handling and sourcing.
For example:
- What do you know about how the oranges you eat are grown?
- What should consumers understand about pesticide use in fruit and vegetable production?
- How can you assess the freshness and quality of fish?
- How are the hens producing your eggs raised?
- What does cage-free egg production mean?
- What should consumers know about food adulteration and unsafe processing practices?
- How can food handling and storage affect safety and quality?
Through engaging videos, educational graphics, expert insights, interactive discussions and practical consumer tips, KYF will make food systems knowledge more accessible and relevant to everyday life.
The goal is simple – to help people understand their food better, ask informed questions and make more confident food choices.
KYF will feature regularly across AgrowSAFE’s communication platforms as part of its wider public education and stakeholder engagement activities.
AgrowSAFE’s Core Services and Activities
AgrowSAFE brings together several complementary services and activities to support responsible production and stronger food systems.
- Farm Assessment and Improvement Support – Supporting farmers to understand responsible production requirements, assess existing practices, identify gaps and implement practical improvement measures.
- Training and Technical Advisory – Providing guidance, educational resources and connections to relevant technical expertise in farm management, food safety, animal health and welfare, environmental sustainability and other responsible production practices.
- Production Records and Traceability – Encouraging appropriate documentation of farm activities, inputs, production practices and other relevant information to strengthen transparency, monitoring and traceability.
- Compliance Assessment and Verification – Developing and applying structured assessment and verification processes to recognize producers who demonstrate compliance with defined AgrowSAFE requirements. Verification is intended to be based on documented evidence and applicable assessment procedures, rather than participation in the programme alone.
- Buyer Engagement and Market Linkages – Connecting participating producers with buyers interested in responsibly sourced agricultural products and supporting dialogue around sourcing expectations, product quality and supply requirements.
- Consumer Awareness and Public Education – Improving public understanding of food safety, quality, responsible production and sourcing through campaigns, digital communications, the KYF educational series, media partnerships and community outreach.
- Stakeholder Partnerships and Knowledge Sharing – Working with relevant government institutions, professional service providers, researchers, civil society organizations and private sector actors to support responsible food systems development.
- Monitoring, Learning and Continuous Improvement – Generating relevant insights from programme activities, assessments and stakeholder engagement to inform improvements, strengthen accountability and support evidence-based decision-making.
These components are being developed and implemented progressively as AgrowSAFE expands its activities and partnerships.
A Progressive and Inclusive Approach
AgrowSAFE recognizes that farmers operate in different contexts and face varying financial, technical and operational constraints. For this reason, the initiative is designed around a progressive improvement approach.
Rather than expecting every farmer to meet all requirements immediately, AgrowSAFE seeks to support producers in understanding their current practices, identifying priority areas for improvement and taking practical steps toward greater compliance and market readiness.
This approach recognizes that responsible production is a continuous process requiring knowledge, investment, technical support and appropriate incentives. At the same time, any formal verification or recognition of compliance must be based on clearly defined requirements and evidence of the relevant practices. By combining accessibility with credible assessment, AgrowSAFE aims to make responsible agricultural production more achievable without compromising the integrity of its standards.
Building a Food System We Can Trust
Creating safer, more ethical and sustainable food systems requires collective responsibility.
- Farmers must have the support and opportunities needed to improve production practices.
- Buyers must be able to identify and engage credible suppliers.
- Consumers must have access to reliable information about the food they eat.
- Governments, technical institutions and other stakeholders must continue to strengthen the systems that enable responsible production and trade.
AgrowSAFE seeks to bring these efforts together.
Through farmer support, responsible sourcing, verification, public education and partnerships, we aim to contribute to food systems that are safer, more transparent, humane, sustainable and inclusive.
As we pilot, refine and expand AgrowSAFE, we invite farmers, buyers, food businesses, service providers, consumers and other stakeholders to join us in advancing responsible food production and sourcing.
AgrowSAFE — Advancing Sustainable, Accessible, Food-Safe and Ethical Agriculture.
Know Your Food. Support Responsible Production.
To learn more, explore our Contact Page or email agrowsafe@onehealthdev.org.
